Comments on: Michigan - Preview Weekend

by: J

Wed, 23 Mar 2005 14:18:45 +0000

Glad to hear you really liked the place — I’ve truly enjoyed my time so far.

And you had better keep quiet about that OSU allegiance — I’m from Nebraska, and I get more than enough stick, simply for the Cornhuskers having the gall to have shared the 1997 National Title with Michigan.

Where are you from in Ohio? I went to Kenyon College & know at least a few small Ohio towns…

by: Josh

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 19:10:53 +0000

1. & 4. For the most part, we were on the Central Campus, but the bus tour we went on drove by North Campus. Freaking huge. And I don’t mean to say that Ann Arbor is just a college town, but the university seems to dominate the area to such an extent that it feels odd to call Ann Arbor anything else. I’m from a small town in Ohio, and Ann Arbor is actually bigger than any of the cities around my home. It’s not New York, but that’s a good thing, in my opinion. Sure, Detroit is less than an hour away, but… eww, Detroit.

2. & 3. It wasn’t just the students who were comparing Michigan (implicitly–in general, people were careful to not name names) to other schools. The faculty and other speakers did so as well. That’s to be expected during admitted student events, of course. I didn’t really interpret it as arrogance, though. The people seemed quite nice and enthusiastic about their school. Michigan has a lot of amazing programs, and a lot of people feel that it is the best school for them. If I felt that way about a school, I’d want to convince people to join me there too.

5. Those are some fun facts. I like restaurants. And trees. Macs are cool, too.

6. I would definitely be getting football tickets if I went to UM. Notre Dame I don’t care too much about, but as an Ohioan (and OSU fan, but don’t tell anyone), there’s no way I’d be giving up the OSU-Michigan tickets.

You’re right, I did like Michigan a lot. It seems like it would be a great place to go to law school.

by: Taco John

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 15:53:59 +0000

Here’s my thoughts on your Michigan visit.
1) Yes, that campus is huge. And I’m going to guess you only saw Central Campus, which is the main academic campus. There’s also North Campus (home to the engineering school, med school, and hospital), and South Campus (the athletic campus).

2. You saw first hand the U of M arrogance. It’s not nearly as bad as East Coast school, or Norte Dame, but it’s there. I think it’s well deserved though. It’s amazing that a school can have top ranked programs in areas like law, engineering, business, and medicine, just about every major program you can think of at a university.

3. To comment on the students comparing everything to other schools, I think that’s because Michigan occupies an odd position. Most of the programs are the most theoretical of the practical programs, and vice versa. For instance, Purdue might make engineers who are more likely to just go into the work force and know how to design simple bridges and stuff, and MIT produces engineers who are more likely to end up teaching or doing research, but U of M tends to create the best mix.

4. You make Ann Arbor sound like a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. While it is a nice town for attending college, know this: it is not a college town, in the sense that it is a suburb of Detroit. Sure, there will be kids who believe that Ann Arbor is out in the sticks, but if you never left NYC you’d think that too. Ann Arbor wouldn’t be as big as it is today without the college, but it is by no means dead in the summer (like Bloomington).

5. Fun facts: Ann Arbor has the most resturants, trees, and Apple users per capita of any city in the US.

6. If you go (and it sounds like you liked the place a lot), buy football tickets. Then validate them. You might be able to finance your legal education by selling the Notre Dame and Ohio State tickets next year (not really, but making a profit of $1000 on those two games is not unheard of).