Minnesota's University of Wisconsin desire

[UliKunkel]

Minnesota's University of Wisconsin desire

By Paul Tosto
Minnesota Public Radio
Posted at 1:30 PM on November 14, 2011

In football, the University of Wisconsin is superior to the University of Minnesota. No other way to put that. Wisconsin's beat-down of the Gophers Saturday in Minneapolis was just the latest example.

But it's also the case that in key academic measures, the U has been chasing Wisconsin for years without much luck.

The U for years has published an accountability report where, among other stats, it compares the Twin Cities campus to similar institutions across the country. The U has made a huge effort in recent years to recruit top high school seniors and boost overall graduation rates. While it's had some success, it's done little to improve its standing among its peers, including Wisconsin.

Data from the U's most recent accountability report show when it comes to graduation rates and freshman entering from the top 10 percent and top 25 percent of their high school classes, the U remains at or near the bottom of its peer group and far behind Madison.

Not all the comparisons are bad.The U is showing some muscle attracting National Merit Scholars.

Still, it remains a tough climb for the U to match Wisconsin in academic data or in the academic beauty contest that is the U.S. News college rankings, where the U Twin Cities this year comes in at 68 and Madison is ranked 42.

 

[RodentRampage]

What a hit piece. You can cherry pick numbers to find whatever you want. This isn't evidence that Wisconsin is any better acadmically than Minnesota. It is a measure of structure. If we made the U more exclusive, this would change the numbers. But would it make the education any better? Does it make you any dumber if the U admission standards are lower? Exclusivity is a highly overrated factor, look at the education you're going to get.

At least it admits that the US News and World Report list is a beauty contest. #68 is a pretty good rating in any case, and other ratings that focus on more relevant ratings put the U much higher. I've seen lists with these other rankings, can any one post them?

 

[UliKunkel]

This "hit piece" is from your own public radio station. The story is based on an accountability report prepared by the University of Minnesota. You can check it out and see exactly where the University of Minnesota believes it falls behind Wisconsin. Sorry that the link to the accountability report didn't come through. It is pasted below.

If you don't like the US News ranking system (and it is surely flawed), you could try the 2011 edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, which puts Madison at #17 and Minnesota at #28. (Not too shabby for either university!)

Link: http://www.academic.umn.edu/accountability/pdf/2011/2011_UMN_Accountability_Report.pdf.

Link: http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp.

 

[50PoundHead]

It's all valid data, but it's kind of apples and oranges to some extent. I believe all the state colleges in Wisconsin (at least a majority) are housed under one board of trustees (regents, whatever) and the University system in Minnesota is separated from the other state colleges, which are housed under the Minnesota State Colleges and University board.

Madison has, at least as it has been described to me, always been the crown jewel of the Wisconsin system and has had higher entrance requirements than the other branches of the University of Wisconsin system. For years and years, especially when General College and other satellite programs existed, the University of Minnesota took almost anyone with a pulse. It was the "destiny" college choice for a lot of kids who wanted to get out of small towns and hit the big city and the U accommodated them readily. That has changed some, but I believe the entrance requirements at the U are still below those at Madison and it largely is a holdover from the belief that the Twin Cities campus is the college for "all" and our Legislature has resisted moving away from that mission.

They are both good schools and any student can get a solid education at either place. Everyone gets hung up on arbitrary rankings (and they are arbitrary) when the only ranking that truly matters is if the student feels both satisfied with what they received and are prepared for their next life step.

 

[Ole]

This "hit piece" is from your own public radio station. The story is based on an accountability report prepared by the University of Minnesota. You can check it out and see exactly where the University of Minnesota believes it falls behind Wisconsin. Sorry that the link to the accountability report didn't come through. It is pasted below.

If you don't like the US News ranking system (and it is surely flawed), you could try the 2011 edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, which puts Madison at #17 and Minnesota at #28. (Not too shabby for either university!)

Link: http://www.academic.umn.edu/accountability/pdf/2011/2011_UMN_Accountability_Report.pdf.

Link: http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp.

Go choke on a brat.
WE DON'T WANT TO BE WISCONSIN.
Once dirty sconnie trash understand that, they can go back to ravaging deer carcasses in peace.

 

[zambam]

Only good thing about Wisconsin is the cheese. There is a Cheese Castle by where I live, best cheese I've ever eaten.

 

[RodentRampage]

That it came from MPR doesn't make it any less of a hit piece.

 

[gopherbadgerman]

Go choke on a brat.
WE DON'T WANT TO BE WISCONSIN.
Once dirty sconnie trash understand that, they can go back to ravaging deer carcasses in peace.

Classy response

 

[NateDawgUM]

1. Minnesota sucks at graduating students.
2. Minnesota has a less top 10% high school graduates

And what exactly does that have to do with the quality of education received? Let's not even touch on the number of brain cells that these top 10% students are smoking and vomiting away in their 4 years in Madison.

 

[Gopherdrummer]

In speaking with a professor from Carlson he said that the U is currently ranking number 1 in job placement after graduation. Now this might only be attributed to the business school, but it could also be applied to the entire university given the twin cities area.

This could be an internal study, but either way he said the U was well ahead of Ivy League schools. Given today's world, that stat is the only one that matters.

 

[RodentRampage]

The main campus of the University of Minnesota represents 38% of all the enrollment in Minnesota's public four year colleges. The main campus of the University of Wisconsin represents 31% of all the enrollment in Wisconsin's public four year colleges.

 

[50PoundHead]

I saw President Kaler (or is that Prexy K?) speak recently and I was quite impressed. His challenge will be to raise academic outcomes and at the same time have the U remain "the people's college" that the Legislature continues to promote.

That's been the challenge starting with C. Peter McGrath and it remains relevant today. I still think there are confiscated effigies of Ken Keller in a storage shed somewhere on campus from when he tried to implement his Commitment to Focus program.

NateDawg's comments really do hit home. Our graduation rate is likely lower than it is at a number of schools because the U admits more students with higher levels of academic risk than at other schools. I don't know that for fact (acceptance rates would seem to contradict my stance, but percentage of students on Pell Grants would seem to support it), but it's just a hunch. And if that is a fact, I'd rather be a university adding value to the lives of students who only seek a chance as opposed to one concerned about where it ranks in a set of arguably arbitrary measures (not saying Wisconsin is doing that).

Truth be told, both Wisconsin and Minnesota are very good public universities. Some programs are better at one place or the other, but it's not like either school is lapping the other academically. The Upper Midwest (Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota) has long been the highest performing region in terms of educational achievement and we should all take pride in that as opposed to starting urinary wars over marginal differences.

 

[IDFM]

I use to work in the Wisconsin State Capitol, and I can tell you that the admission process for Wisconsin is completely F-ed up. The admission department at the UW-Madison relies heavily (when I mean heavily I mean almost exclusively) at high school class rank. I have known plenty of people that have gotten into UW-Madison with 20 and 21 ACT scores back during the old rating but rated in the top ten percent of their class.

I would hear from colleagues of mine how numerous parents who call the various offices pissed that their child got wait listed or did not receive admission even if they had a 30 on their ACT. This has always been a very testy subject in the State Capitol with both the Governor's office and the Legislature but the UW refuses to change their policy on this matter.

 

[50PoundHead]

I use to work in the Wisconsin State Capitol, and I can tell you that the admission process for Wisconsin is completely F-ed up. The admission department at the UW-Madison relies heavily (when I mean heavily I mean almost exclusively) at high school class rank. I have known plenty of people that have gotten into UW-Madison with 20 and 21 ACT scores back during the old rating but rated in the top ten percent of their class.

I would hear from colleagues of mine how numerous parents who call the various offices pissed that their child got wait listed or did not receive admission even if they had a 30 on their ACT. This has always been a very testy subject in the State Capitol with both the Governor's office and the Legislature but the UW refuses to change their policy on this matter.

Does each branch of the University of Wisconsin system have its own admissions requirements? Curious to know. I've always thought that the strength of the Wisconsin system is that it is a more unitary model than what we have in Minnesota and that certain programs are promoted at each of the branches, taking pressure off of the main campus in terms of the "I have to go THERE" sentiment of prospective students.

 

[IDFM]

Does each branch of the University of Wisconsin system have its own admissions requirements? Curious to know. I've always thought that the strength of the Wisconsin system is that it is a more unitary model than what we have in Minnesota and that certain programs are promoted at each of the branches, taking pressure off of the main campus in terms of the "I have to go THERE" sentiment of prospective students.

The UW System Board of Regents creates policy on the minimum requirements to attend a System campus. Each campus thereafter can strength those minimum requirements so that it fits there university. Each of the system school, outside of Madison has its own specialization but also their own type of student as well and they take that into account during the admissions process. There is some similarity, but really UW-Madison acts as its own island.

 

[RedPoo]

It's all valid data, but it's kind of apples and oranges to some extent. I believe all the state colleges in Wisconsin (at least a majority) are housed under one board of trustees (regents, whatever) and the University system in Minnesota is separated from the other state colleges, which are housed under the Minnesota State Colleges and University board.

Madison has, at least as it has been described to me, always been the crown jewel of the Wisconsin system and has had higher entrance requirements than the other branches of the University of Wisconsin system. For years and years, especially when General College and other satellite programs existed, the University of Minnesota took almost anyone with a pulse. It was the "destiny" college choice for a lot of kids who wanted to get out of small towns and hit the big city and the U accommodated them readily. That has changed some, but I believe the entrance requirements at the U are still below those at Madison and it largely is a holdover from the belief that the Twin Cities campus is the college for "all" and our Legislature has resisted moving away from that mission.

They are both good schools and any student can get a solid education at either place. Everyone gets hung up on arbitrary rankings (and they are arbitrary) when the only ranking that truly matters is if the student feels both satisfied with what they received and are prepared for their next life step.

This.
Tightening up entrance requirements and making the U more of a 'marquee' school actually really bothers me, and I've taken it as a point of pride that when I went here, this school would take most anybody who wanted to be here. For the record, I'm one of those people who scored a 30 on my ACT but had a low class rank (with a GPA over three, due to some fairly disgusting grade inflation that I didn't know about at the time that's rampant at the catholic high school I attended). Applied all over the place, was rejected by Madison, accepted into the now defunct General College at the U (where I quickly moved out into CLA, and eventually on to grad school at the U.) So I probably wouldn't be a Gopher if we were a "better" school.
There's an interesting piece I read recently in Minnesota Monthly about some of these changes, pushed largely by rapidly decreasing funding from the state, to be more selective. I'd be very surprised if the school doesn't jump up in all these rankings quite a bit in the next decade or two, but I'm going to be very disappointed when it does. I'd rather give everyone a good education than turn into a school for the state's elite and relegate everyone else to Morris or Duluth (no offense to those fine institutions).



On a side note, there are rankings out there that control for student body size/selectivity (whereas difficulty of admission is a key factor in US News and World Report rankings). I know I saw one a while back that had the U ranked markedly higher than most of the ones you generally see, but I can't seem to string together the right google query to bring it up (and I don't care that much, since it's largely nonsense anyway given that everyone wants something else from their own school)

 

[umn99]

I had a GPA of 3.4 and an ACT score of 24 and didn't apply to the U until March of my senior year of hs in 1994. I still got in at that time. There's no way that they would even consider me now if I was applying for admission in fall 2012.r. I'm with RedPoo in that I liked the idea that the U took pretty much everybody who wanted to go to school here. It was "The U"! But I get why they have become more selective and entrance requirements are now tight. It's too bad for the students that have good grades and good scores that desperately want to go to the U and don't get in, but the days of it being a back-up school are long gone.

 

[zambam]

I had a GPA of 3.4 and an ACT score of 24 and didn't apply to the U until March of my senior year of hs in 1994. I still got in at that time. There's no way that they would even consider me now if I was applying for admission in fall 2012.r. I'm with RedPoo in that I liked the idea that the U took pretty much everybody who wanted to go to school here. It was "The U"! But I get why they have become more selective and entrance requirements are now tight. It's too bad for the students that have good grades and good scores that desperately want to go to the U and don't get in, but the days of it being a back-up school are long gone.

Not true, it was a kid in my high school's back-up school if he didn't get into the Air Force Academy. It can still be a back-up school for someone with high aspirations.

 

[umn99]

Not true, it was a kid in my high school's back-up school if he didn't get into the Air Force Academy. It can still be a back-up school for someone with high aspirations.

Just saying that students can't depend on automatically being admitted to the U - it's much tougher than it used to be.

 

[Texas-Gopher]

I had a GPA of 3.4 and an ACT score of 24 and didn't apply to the U until March of my senior year of hs in 1994. I still got in at that time. There's no way that they would even consider me now if I was applying for admission in fall 2012.r. I'm with RedPoo in that I liked the idea that the U took pretty much everybody who wanted to go to school here. It was "The U"! But I get why they have become more selective and entrance requirements are now tight. It's too bad for the students that have good grades and good scores that desperately want to go to the U and don't get in, but the days of it being a back-up school are long gone.

I wouldn't get in now either. I love that they gave me a shot and I took advantage of it. Minnesota was the people's school.

So, I respect Wisconsin, but I love Minnesota!

Thanks U of M!

 

[Golden Elephant]

The average ACT composite for incoming freshmen in the College of Science & Engineering is 30.4 this year. Average! The U's admission standards have increased greatly recently.

Some thread a few weeks back had a link to all the B1G schools and the ACT for math & verbal for those at the 25th & 75th percentile of admitted students. NW was clearly the top, Mich was a bit behind, then there was a big clump in the middle and Iowa & Nebraska a bit below. Wisconsin was less than 1 point in front of us.

US News is a beauty contest and it relies heavily on admissions and alumni giving. Academically, Wisconsin and Minnesota are very similar with certain departments & colleges being relative strengths at each school.

 

[zambam]

The average ACT composite for incoming freshmen in the College of Science & Engineering is 30.4 this year. Average! The U's admission standards have increased greatly recently.

Some thread a few weeks back had a link to all the B1G schools and the ACT for math & verbal for those at the 25th & 75th percentile of admitted students. NW was clearly the top, Mich was a bit behind, then there was a big clump in the middle and Iowa & Nebraska a bit below. Wisconsin was less than 1 point in front of us.

US News is a beauty contest and it relies heavily on admissions and alumni giving. Academically, Wisconsin and Minnesota are very similar with certain departments & colleges being relative strengths at each school.

You do realize you chose one of the hardest schools to get into right? I think CLA is like 26 average ACT.

 

[RailBaronYarr]

The average ACT composite for incoming freshmen in the College of Science & Engineering is 30.4 this year. Average! The U's admission standards have increased greatly recently.

Some thread a few weeks back had a link to all the B1G schools and the ACT for math & verbal for those at the 25th & 75th percentile of admitted students. NW was clearly the top, Mich was a bit behind, then there was a big clump in the middle and Iowa & Nebraska a bit below. Wisconsin was less than 1 point in front of us.

US News is a beauty contest and it relies heavily on admissions and alumni giving. Academically, Wisconsin and Minnesota are very similar with certain departments & colleges being relative strengths at each school.

I'm impressed by this stat as well as the trend of vastly increasing averages across all the colleges over the past 5-10 years. I'm more surprised by it because since 2007, the number of freshman admitted has gone down only 10% (see the trends page: http://www.oir.umn.edu/student/enrollment/term/1119/trend/10978). Yet the individual colleges have increased their average admissions numbers by quite a bit.

However, as others have pointed out, I'm not so sure I agree with simply accepting less people to up the averages to try to appear to be a better school. Has the quality of the education itself (ie professors, classes offered, lab equipment, etc) gone up because less kids with lower admission standards are let in? They didn't affect the average by allowing the same number of people in with just a higher class of student. (I also recognize I'm only able to look back at class sizes to 2007 when the initiatives at the U were well underway.. any ideas on fresh class sizes in the 90s to early 2000s?)

The U of M should recognize that there ARE only 4 viable schools in the system for potential undergrads. By far the TC campus is the main one (by enrollment, location, funding, etc) and barring a student wanting the experience of Duluth (outdoors, location), or Crookston/Morris (probably wanting to be closer to home or smaller campus feel), there are PLENTY of qualified kids in MN who'd like to go here not getting in.

Also factor in that the U is drawing fewer people from the TC metro area and WI/ND/SD in general. Since 07, The number of students from these states in attendance at the U has declined while foreign/"Other US" students have multiplied by 2.2. I don't have a problem with foreign kids or kids from NY, but shouldn't the U recognize that high schools in MN, WI, IA produce some of the smarter kids in the country (on average) and their mission should be to allow as many as possible a college education?

I know research is one of the primary goals of a public institution. Without it, universities lose funding, grants, exposure, money for labs, credibility, draw for top-level professors, etc. HOWEVER, I think focusing so much on becoming one of the top 3 research public institutions in the country has made students sacrifice a little (both in attendance cost and who has access to education).