University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Top Questions

The school is a good size because it is really big but you can have small classes if you want. People are impressed when I say that I go to Michigan. It is a great college town. There is a lot of school pride.

college town-- everyone walks everywhere, things are close, horrible weather (totally need rain boots)

Michigan is one of the best colleges in the world. Everyone knows what it is and respects it. Some may not think that recognition is important, but when you are in a job interview somday and the boss's cousin played football at Mich, you will be glad you went here. Everyone is connected to this college somehow and that's a good thing. It is an extremely large school, but there are so many different ways to make a massive campus become a lot smaller, i.e. joining greek life, being in a smaller college (art, RC), joining one of the hundreds of clubs. As for school pride, it's not even debatable that U of M has more school spirit than any college. Michigan football equals life for a lot of students. This spirit may be annoying to some, but is extremely exciting in small doses, i.e. the football games on Saturday. Ann Arbor is an unreal college town. The college is focus of the town.

Having both a college campus and a city is extremely valuable. Having access to the typucal college bubble is well complimented by the diverse side streets that require little effort to take advantage of. I can't imagine going to a school in a big city which lacks the cozy and appropriately paced daily life to which inherently furthers your cultural and academic growth.

The best thing about going to school in Michigan is the close proximity to home. My dad comes up once a week for dinner and it is really convenient giving my mom laundry every week. The footballs game are the highlight of the year-- the tailgates are crazy and everyone always looks forward to them.

Michigan is the perfect school. It has everything you could ever hope for--academics, extracurriculars, football, and is located in an amazing city, Ann Arbor. For me, Michigan was the perfect choice because I wanted to go to a great school but I also love football season and wanted to have a good team to rally behind. Michigan provides everything you could ever want no matter what kind of person you are. There are a million different clubs/activities on campus and there are so many ways to get involved. The thing that really sets Michigan apart is the fact that I have NEVER heard anyone say they didn't love going to school hear (and I mean NEVER).

Coming to U of M has made me the happiest I've ever been. Sure the workload stresses me out almost constantly but I'm still SO happy learning new things and meeting new people. The only thing I would change would be the difficulty of some of the classes, sometimes it seems like the university tries to make a class more challenging just because we're a prestigious school.

Love it. Big public school, its possible to never see the same person twice or conversely, see the same person too many times. The amount of attractive girls are vastly underrated. BTB rocks, The jug is the consumate college bar.

Michigan is respected above all as one of the world's top research universities. In the macro-view, the University is organized to optimize research productivity over undergraduate instruction. Undergraduates may feel that too much of their (very high) tuition is subsidizing research rather than paying for quality instruction or student services. Ann Arbor is on par with Berkeley or any other top-notch college town. The University offers lots of excellent social/academic clubs. Athletics are top notch. The undergraduate experience can be wonderful, but if you're paying full price, especially out-of-state, you'd better take advantage of as many extracurricular activities as possible because tuition is downright ludicrous compared with the upper-mediocre level of undergraduate instruction here.

The main criticisms that I've heard about University of Michigan is that it's too large and spread throughout Ann Arbor. There's no getting around the fact that UMich is a big school, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a sense of community. Plus, there are a lot of advantages to being large--more people to meet, befriend or date, more classes, more resources, more activities and events, etc. I was really worried that University of Michigan was too large for me before I came here, which was why I joined one of the Michigan Learning Communities, the Residential College. The advantage of these is that they allow for a small, tight-knit community like a small liberal arts college, but with all the resources of a large university. The RC offers a lot of really innovative classes as well that students should look into if they're interested in the humanities, arts or language. As for the university being spread to thin throughout Ann Arbor, that's just not true for the most part. Central Campus is just about all in one place and most of the dorms are a pretty short walk from there. There is, however, the exception of North Campus which is a short bus ride away. If you're planning on doing engineering, art or music, you'll probably end up in a Freshman dorm on North Campus. North Campus itself is nice and a good place to meet other freshman, but just inconvenient because it's a little ways away. Other than that though, pretty much anywhere you would want to go is a short walk.