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I find it hard to believe that some of the schools warren zee mention above, in particular, Ohio State, are on the same overall undergraduate academic playing field as Michigan.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Originally Posted by stradivarius
I find it hard to believe that some of the schools warren zee mention above, in particular, Ohio State, are on the same overall undergraduate academic playing field as Michigan.
Michigan is a great school, but it really depends on program. I went to UW for grad school, my program was great. Others, more middling. tOSU and Michigan I'm sure have both strengths and weaknesses.
No doubt though (to me) that Michigan and Northwestern, overall academically, are the better of the B10 undergrad programs.
Your GPA number is less informative than your class percentile rank. For instance, in my town kids earn extra points in the GPA for honors and AP courses, yielding GPAs over 4.0. The highest GPA possible is a 4.4. Therefore, in my town, a GPA of 3.9 might be only top 25th percentile, whereas the top fifth percentile is a GPA of over 4.2. If your class percentile rank is top 5th percentile, your standardized test scores are 95th% or higher, and you have shown leadership or excelled in a particular sport, instrument, or extracurricular activity, then you could consider applying to top tier schools, like Ivy league, Stanford, MIT. If you qualify for affirmative action, you would be considered if your qualifications are about 85% of that of non-affirmative action candidates. None of the Ivy league schools are tremendous party/sports schools, although people do go to the basketball and football games, and there can be plenty of partying on the weekends, if that's what you are looking for.
If you're planning for college, what you really need to be thinking about is how you want to earn a living after college, where and how to get the best training for that career, and if money is an issue, how you're going to pay for it without going deeply into debt. Proximity (or distance from) home is also an issue. The absolute last consideration is the Ra-Ra Sis Boom Ba college "spirit". You can get that very cheaply for the price of admission at your local college football stadium. But if what you want is a big school, with traditional big sports programs (football, basketball), that has a wide variety of academic programs and is considered selective, look at Michigan, UNC, Penn State, U of Wisconsin, Ohio State, U Texas Austin, U Conn, U of Washington. You would be looking at the flagship schools, of course, not a branch campus. And be prepared to pay full ticket, out of state tuition.
I find it hard to believe that some of the schools warren zee mention above, in particular, Ohio State, are on the same overall undergraduate academic playing field as Michigan.
I'm not using Michigan as the academic gold standard of anything. Who said I was?
I merely gave the poster several good schools with a lot of "spirit". That's what he asked for.
OSU and Syracuse are also highly competitive universities that are full of school spirit.
Penn State is a bit less competitive and WVU could be a good safety school
Apparently the OP agrees, as he sent me a thank you note and gave me rep. I answered his question, not mine.
So when I graduate from high school I would like to go to a school with good spirit (High basketball/football/baseball game turnout) good academics (I have a 3.89 gpa and not sure of my ACT, but in sure it will be AT VERY LEAST 28) and a kind of lively place (no missisipi or wyoming)
Thanks for your help!
Unfortunately, good academics and school spirit only narrows it down to a thousand or so.
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