Michigan Early Decision - Any Early Anecdotes?
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Anonymous
Both UVA and UMich offer need-based aid to OOS students. UVA promises to meet full need OOS, whereas UMich does not. Both are need-aware for OOS admission. |
Anonymous
I went to Michigan undergrad and Cornell for grad school. Ann Arbor is just a much better city. The campus is integrated into the city and it's just much easier to get around, especially during the winter (Cornell is very hilly and it's a pain to get to campus if you're in of campus housing). Separately, having taken high level math classes at both schools, there wasn't a discernible difference in student intellect (the lower performing Michigan students get weeded out quickly and don't pursue the harder majors/classes). |
Anonymous
The effect of this is that if a family makes $100k and their student is accepted to both UVA and Michigan OOS, they will receive substantial grant aid from UVA, and nothing (other than federal loans and work study) from Michigan. |
Anonymous
That is not accurate. UMich is apparently choosey about who it offers full aid to, but it will offer full need-based aid to some low income OOS students. Try the Net Price Calculator. The caveat with UMich is that anecdotes from last admission season sound like UMich may be offering less than in the past. By reputation, no public university, including UVA, will offer aid as generous as a private, when it comes to net prices. UVA and UNC theoretically meet full need but will define that differently. |
Anonymous
Adding, following last season, it would not surprise me if UMich stopped offering need-based aid OOS. I was posting mostly to clarify that UMich indeed is one of the exceptions to the rule that public universities do not offer institutional grants to OOS students. |
Anonymous
PP here (Michigan alum with 2025 DC Michigan grad). From anecdotal info from DC's friends and reading Reddit, etc., Michigan indeed is very stingy with need-based aid unless the applicant is extremely outstanding in their view. Other DC is at UVA, and anecdotal info from that DC's friends and Reddit indicate that UVA is indeed more generous. Finally, my sister went to Cornell, so here's my two cents on comparing these schools. UVA tries to incorporate many aspects of private university culture in how it operates, e.g., "grounds", "first year", orientation for both incoming students and their parents. Communication with UVA has been very good, and the vibe on campus is more like a private university. The OOS students tend to be UMC WASPy types from the NE and South (which is what Jefferson intended), but since they are only 1/3 of the undergraduates, they don't distort the social dynamics. Michigan makes virtually no such effort after your DC gets in. This is a very large school, and DC will need to be a self-starter to succeed. The university is 50/50 instate/OOS, and the major differences between the populations in terms of income and ethnicity (with OOS having a lot of Jews and Asians from the coasts and Chicago) create some mild tensions in the social dynamics. Cornell felt like a bit more of a grinder school. The weather and environment are downers as well. However, my sister was very happy with the education and experience she got at Cornell. She even took a seminar with Carl Sagan and a course on wine tasting (for credit!) at the hotel school. You couldn't get that elsewhere. Academics are pretty comparable at the three places. Each will have some marginal comparative advantage over the others, but that shouldn't be the decisive criteria for selecting among the three. Fit is very important for all three places, with $ of course being an important consideration. For the second DC, UVA was only slightly "worse" reputation-wise overall than Michigan, and for DC's intended major, UVA had better or similar reputation. So, again, YMMV. |
Anonymous
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“The university is 50/50 instate/OOS, and the major differences between the populations in terms of income and ethnicity (with OOS having a lot of Jews and Asians from the coasts and Chicago) create some mild tensions in the social dynamics.”
What the hell does this statement mean? Is Michigan loaded with DC type students? |
Anonymous
NP. No. DMV kids are scarce compared to very affluent NYC metro kids, LA kids, Chicago kids. Yes, a lot of them are from very wealthy families. Is that what you meant by "DC type students"? Rich? There is a longstanding trope that affluent NYCers are enmeshed with the Greek fraternities. Maybe that could be reinforced by legacy status. My kid is in-state and his friends are OOS. He refers to himself as their "pet Michigander". His friends are an impressive crowd of mainly engineers, and they are good kids. Three semesters in they are happy and thriving. I expect they will mostly leave for corporate/big money jobs far from Ann Arbor. My kid wants to stay because he enjoys his life here. He's been to Europe 4 times already and to Mexico and to NYC, DC, Boston, Atlanta, etc. So he's seen other places. Home is home. And we like fall and winter. For those who don't know Michigan and the Detroit suburbs well, a huge number of in-staters at Michigan come from Oakland County which is very similar to Montgomery County. Educated, affluent, fairly politically moderate (by today's crazy standards) whether D or R. There are also large educated immigrant communities here in the Detroit metro area: Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Ukrainian, Middle Eastern. Our NMSF lists show that many of our top achievers here, like elsewhere, are also Asian and Southeast Asian. (My unscientific guess is that these are kids of U.S. grad school educated immigrant parents.) So it's incorrect to make too many assumptions about who might be from where, in-state vs. OOS. I find that my kid has a nice balance of former high school acquaintances that he sees around campus and new friends from OOS. I agree that one might have to work at it a bit. I'm thinking blending probably comes with being an upper division student in a major or having specific extracurriculars where people can get to know total strangers. I won't say more because now my kid reads DCUM. Lol. My ex-DMVness rubbed off on him. He's happy at Michigan and I'm happy he's there. OOSers are welcome as long as they are not snobby to locals. We kinda know you have had more turns on the hamster wheel of life. But that's not necessarily a good thing! |