Umich vs Georgetown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which would you choose and why??

Never pay private school tuition to a public unless you have no other good options.
Georgetown is a great option.
Case closed.

I never understand this logic. Just because the state heavily subsidizes to make tuition low for their residents doesn’t mean the quality of education in a state school is not worth the price compared to a private school!

Have fun studying in a factory! If you do not know the difference, you are only outing yourself as someone who is unfamiliar with one or the other. But people actually familiar with both know there is a huge difference.

I had firsthand experience with one of HYP, Cal (granted, not UMich), and another top 20 elite (ranked higher than GT), as an undergrad, grad and faculty, not in that order. If your kid is really good, then she would get so much out of a place like Cal (the faculty and Ph.D. students there are tippy top in the world), including personal mentoring from faculty. If your kid needs more hand-holding, then a top 20 (not HYPSM) elite private would work better!

Here I’ve left HYPSM out, but am comparing one similar to UMich to another similar to GT, even though the schools I had personal experience with were ranked higher than the two in question.

oh, I thought this comment was going in a different direction. Cal right now is such a mess - classes are oversubscribed even in lecture halls so kids just want online at their leisure. The only personal interaction is with international TAs who are not mentoring anyone. And the housing shortage are pushing kids very very far off campus and there's no parking so kids have to take city buses to campus.

but I dont' think Michigan is like that.

I'd say Georgetown for business or IR, MI for STEM. The day to day life at Georgetown will add 10k a year, but kids can work. Internships now pay pretty well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Visited UMich in the late 90s and there was a KKK march on campus. These folks were in full costume. Hopefully things have changed since then.

Did it occur to you that those kind of people are everywhere and they go where the populace will be most annoyed or against their ideas?

Kind of like Jan. 6th. Do you hold that against DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choosing between an expensive party and an education....one will teach you what to think, the other will teach you how to think.

Not sure whether by “expensive party” you meant the football game in Ann Arbor or the $200-a-night Georgetown club scene PP described.

Case in point, an inaccurate assumption about everyone at UMich going to football games AND everyone at GU going to a 'club scene' at $200-a-night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Choosing between an expensive party and an education....one will teach you what to think, the other will teach you how to think.

My husband went to grad school at Georgetown and lived with Georgetown undergrads. He was underwhelmed by the quality of his program but he had a scholarship so just kept his mouth shut to be grateful.

One weekend, he came back to his shared house to find the dining room table broken and collapsed in the middle of the room.

When we asked what happened, we were told that it collapsed during a round of body shots. (For those not in the know, this involves doing tequila shots then licking the rim salt and lime juice off a recumbent person's stomach.)

Later I went to Michigan for grad school. Had a great time and learned a ton. My kid is an undergrad now and most of his friends are OOS engineers. They do wild things like going out to dinner and having dessert parties with goodie bags I brought him from the Ann Arbor Trader Joe's. The engineers, in particular, seem to have great internship prospects and are doing fun extracurriculars like project teams.

So I really cannot decide from the PP's post what school PP thinks is an expensive party.

My family's conclusion was that Georgetown is overrated and the facilities are still lacking. It's prestigious because it attracts rich kids. The same is actually true of Michigan. There are a lot of 1% kids there based on reporting.

I've commented before about large classes. My kid has had plenty of small classes at Michigan. As well as auditorium classes. We never expected every class to be a high school sized class. Much of college is about your own engagement with the course material. Not about the room size. Some people prefer discussion classes, some prefer lectures. Science and math classes don't really require discussion. Whatever you might have gotten from a small class where you raise hands, you can get from office hours.

Michigan's not perfect and neither is Georgetown. They have very different characteristics so I think people can easily have a preference. I would not factor rankings into the decision at all. I think USNWR type rankings are meaningless for making life decisions.

Good luck all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choosing between an expensive party and an education....one will teach you what to think, the other will teach you how to think.

Not sure whether by “expensive party” you meant the football game in Ann Arbor or the $200-a-night Georgetown club scene PP described.

Case in point, an inaccurate assumption about everyone at UMich going to football games AND everyone at GU going to a 'club scene' at $200-a-night.

is it an assumption if the OR specifically says not everyone does that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choosing between an expensive party and an education....one will teach you what to think, the other will teach you how to think.

My husband went to grad school at Georgetown and lived with Georgetown undergrads. He was underwhelmed by the quality of his program but he had a scholarship so just kept his mouth shut to be grateful.

One weekend, he came back to his shared house to find the dining room table broken and collapsed in the middle of the room.

When we asked what happened, we were told that it collapsed during a round of body shots. (For those not in the know, this involves doing tequila shots then licking the rim salt and lime juice off a recumbent person's stomach.)

Later I went to Michigan for grad school. Had a great time and learned a ton. My kid is an undergrad now and most of his friends are OOS engineers. They do wild things like going out to dinner and having dessert parties with goodie bags I brought him from the Ann Arbor Trader Joe's. The engineers, in particular, seem to have great internship prospects and are doing fun extracurriculars like project teams.

So I really cannot decide from the PP's post what school PP thinks is an expensive party.

My family's conclusion was that Georgetown is overrated and the facilities are still lacking. It's prestigious because it attracts rich kids. The same is actually true of Michigan. There are a lot of 1% kids there based on reporting.

I've commented before about large classes. My kid has had plenty of small classes at Michigan. As well as auditorium classes. We never expected every class to be a high school sized class. Much of college is about your own engagement with the course material. Not about the room size. Some people prefer discussion classes, some prefer lectures. Science and math classes don't really require discussion. Whatever you might have gotten from a small class where you raise hands, you can get from office hours.

Michigan's not perfect and neither is Georgetown. They have very different characteristics so I think people can easily have a preference. I would not factor rankings into the decision at all. I think USNWR type rankings are meaningless for making life decisions.

Good luck all!

lol - so passive aggressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choosing between an expensive party and an education....one will teach you what to think, the other will teach you how to think.

My husband went to grad school at Georgetown and lived with Georgetown undergrads. He was underwhelmed by the quality of his program but he had a scholarship so just kept his mouth shut to be grateful.

One weekend, he came back to his shared house to find the dining room table broken and collapsed in the middle of the room.

When we asked what happened, we were told that it collapsed during a round of body shots. (For those not in the know, this involves doing tequila shots then licking the rim salt and lime juice off a recumbent person's stomach.)

Later I went to Michigan for grad school. Had a great time and learned a ton. My kid is an undergrad now and most of his friends are OOS engineers. They do wild things like going out to dinner and having dessert parties with goodie bags I brought him from the Ann Arbor Trader Joe's. The engineers, in particular, seem to have great internship prospects and are doing fun extracurriculars like project teams.

So I really cannot decide from the PP's post what school PP thinks is an expensive party.

My family's conclusion was that Georgetown is overrated and the facilities are still lacking. It's prestigious because it attracts rich kids. The same is actually true of Michigan. There are a lot of 1% kids there based on reporting.

I've commented before about large classes. My kid has had plenty of small classes at Michigan. As well as auditorium classes. We never expected every class to be a high school sized class. Much of college is about your own engagement with the course material. Not about the room size. Some people prefer discussion classes, some prefer lectures. Science and math classes don't really require discussion. Whatever you might have gotten from a small class where you raise hands, you can get from office hours.

Michigan's not perfect and neither is Georgetown. They have very different characteristics so I think people can easily have a preference. I would not factor rankings into the decision at all. I think USNWR type rankings are meaningless for making life decisions.

Good luck all!

lol - so passive aggressive.

Spitting straight facts from my perspective. I'm sure kids are happy at both schools, often for similar reasons. Drinking and partying have been ubiquitous since medieval times. Cambridge got started in part because of a deadly town vs. gown bar fight in Oxford.

I get very tired of the private = "elite, custom, intellectual" and public = "mass, loutish, crowded and substandard" education stereotypes that people use to make their $90K/year college spend justifications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choosing between an expensive party and an education....one will teach you what to think, the other will teach you how to think.

My husband went to grad school at Georgetown and lived with Georgetown undergrads. He was underwhelmed by the quality of his program but he had a scholarship so just kept his mouth shut to be grateful.

One weekend, he came back to his shared house to find the dining room table broken and collapsed in the middle of the room.

When we asked what happened, we were told that it collapsed during a round of body shots. (For those not in the know, this involves doing tequila shots then licking the rim salt and lime juice off a recumbent person's stomach.)

Later I went to Michigan for grad school. Had a great time and learned a ton. My kid is an undergrad now and most of his friends are OOS engineers. They do wild things like going out to dinner and having dessert parties with goodie bags I brought him from the Ann Arbor Trader Joe's. The engineers, in particular, seem to have great internship prospects and are doing fun extracurriculars like project teams.

So I really cannot decide from the PP's post what school PP thinks is an expensive party.

My family's conclusion was that Georgetown is overrated and the facilities are still lacking. It's prestigious because it attracts rich kids. The same is actually true of Michigan. There are a lot of 1% kids there based on reporting.

I've commented before about large classes. My kid has had plenty of small classes at Michigan. As well as auditorium classes. We never expected every class to be a high school sized class. Much of college is about your own engagement with the course material. Not about the room size. Some people prefer discussion classes, some prefer lectures. Science and math classes don't really require discussion. Whatever you might have gotten from a small class where you raise hands, you can get from office hours.

Michigan's not perfect and neither is Georgetown. They have very different characteristics so I think people can easily have a preference. I would not factor rankings into the decision at all. I think USNWR type rankings are meaningless for making life decisions.

Good luck all!

lol - so passive aggressive.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which would you choose and why??

Never pay private school tuition to a public unless you have no other good options.
Georgetown is a great option.
Case closed.

I never understand this logic. Just because the state heavily subsidizes to make tuition low for their residents doesn’t mean the quality of education in a state school is not worth the price compared to a private school!

Have fun studying in a factory! If you do not know the difference, you are only outing yourself as someone who is unfamiliar with one or the other. But people actually familiar with both know there is a huge difference.

.

Some kids like it, the social feel and the anonymity. They like that it is a departure from high school. I did well in this system at a UC and really didn’t know different. Of course, the wide range of study and social activities appeals as well.

But my DS wanted a more personalized setting and goes to a larger East Coast private with small classes. He’s actually a little ambivalent about it now. He’s having to adjust to getting so much attention.

So the choice is not really as obvious as it appears.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In state, choose Michigan. Out of state, Georgetown.

I wouldn't pay $80K per year for OOS, even for Michigan (which is an amazing state school, probably the best in the country), but that's a personal choice. I'd choose smaller classes over football, but I concede that the unifying force of football is cool.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Georgetown

Georgetown!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choosing between an expensive party and an education....one will teach you what to think, the other will teach you how to think.

My husband went to grad school at Georgetown and lived with Georgetown undergrads. He was underwhelmed by the quality of his program but he had a scholarship so just kept his mouth shut to be grateful.

One weekend, he came back to his shared house to find the dining room table broken and collapsed in the middle of the room.

When we asked what happened, we were told that it collapsed during a round of body shots. (For those not in the know, this involves doing tequila shots then licking the rim salt and lime juice off a recumbent person's stomach.)

Later I went to Michigan for grad school. Had a great time and learned a ton. My kid is an undergrad now and most of his friends are OOS engineers. They do wild things like going out to dinner and having dessert parties with goodie bags I brought him from the Ann Arbor Trader Joe's. The engineers, in particular, seem to have great internship prospects and are doing fun extracurriculars like project teams.

So I really cannot decide from the PP's post what school PP thinks is an expensive party.

My family's conclusion was that Georgetown is overrated and the facilities are still lacking. It's prestigious because it attracts rich kids. The same is actually true of Michigan. There are a lot of 1% kids there based on reporting.

I've commented before about large classes. My kid has had plenty of small classes at Michigan. As well as auditorium classes. We never expected every class to be a high school sized class. Much of college is about your own engagement with the course material. Not about the room size. Some people prefer discussion classes, some prefer lectures. Science and math classes don't really require discussion. Whatever you might have gotten from a small class where you raise hands, you can get from office hours.

Michigan's not perfect and neither is Georgetown. They have very different characteristics so I think people can easily have a preference. I would not factor rankings into the decision at all. I think USNWR type rankings are meaningless for making life decisions.

Good luck all!

this is helpful-decideing between gtech and michigan ..im trying to not push kid to umich for engineering-sounds like a more fun school, or to push to gtech as higher ranking/roi

[Anonymous]

Georgetown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choosing between an expensive party and an education....one will teach you what to think, the other will teach you how to think.

My husband went to grad school at Georgetown and lived with Georgetown undergrads. He was underwhelmed by the quality of his program but he had a scholarship so just kept his mouth shut to be grateful.

One weekend, he came back to his shared house to find the dining room table broken and collapsed in the middle of the room.

When we asked what happened, we were told that it collapsed during a round of body shots. (For those not in the know, this involves doing tequila shots then licking the rim salt and lime juice off a recumbent person's stomach.)

Later I went to Michigan for grad school. Had a great time and learned a ton. My kid is an undergrad now and most of his friends are OOS engineers. They do wild things like going out to dinner and having dessert parties with goodie bags I brought him from the Ann Arbor Trader Joe's. The engineers, in particular, seem to have great internship prospects and are doing fun extracurriculars like project teams.

So I really cannot decide from the PP's post what school PP thinks is an expensive party.

My family's conclusion was that Georgetown is overrated and the facilities are still lacking. It's prestigious because it attracts rich kids. The same is actually true of Michigan. There are a lot of 1% kids there based on reporting.

I've commented before about large classes. My kid has had plenty of small classes at Michigan. As well as auditorium classes. We never expected every class to be a high school sized class. Much of college is about your own engagement with the course material. Not about the room size. Some people prefer discussion classes, some prefer lectures. Science and math classes don't really require discussion. Whatever you might have gotten from a small class where you raise hands, you can get from office hours.

Michigan's not perfect and neither is Georgetown. They have very different characteristics so I think people can easily have a preference. I would not factor rankings into the decision at all. I think USNWR type rankings are meaningless for making life decisions.

Good luck all!

this is helpful-decideing between gtech and michigan ..im trying to not push kid to umich for engineering-sounds like a more fun school, or to push to gtech as higher ranking/roi

I am the person who posted that long comparison between Georgetown and Michigan based on our family's experience. I think either Michigan or GTech would be similar.

We had one of our best kids on the robotics team choose Georgia Tech over Michigan for personal reasons. She is having a great time. My son's roommate chose Michigan instead of Georgia Tech (OOS). He has multiple Michigan grads in his family.

For your kid, I'd look at the campus recruiting statistics and where your kid wants to live after college.

Michigan's alumni bases are particularly strong in LA (some Silicon Valley), Chicago, and NYC metro. Also it has a fair bit of global recognition in certain circles. That will be a different pattern from Georgia Tech. Other than expecting a heavier presence in the South, I can't comment on that. Looking at where large, active alumni clubs are located usually gives good intel.

I think this is a personal decision for your kid. I'd say a cost difference of $50K or less is not a big deal if your kid has a preference. Beyond that, I think you should factor that in. But your ROI calcs could be off in any direction.

Also, with big schools, it's true that you have to be more active to get all the goodies. You need to know what resources are available, and be proactive and timely about using them. That includes registering early. So don't drag out the decision if you don't have to.

Finally, please don't make a decision based on football. The fun of being at the Big House is there for those who want it. But that's a few Saturdays a year. It's really not a good reason to pick a school. You need to choose the one that has the most overall to offer based on your specific needs. For engineers, that should include internship offerings, on-campus recruiters, electives, project teams, non-engineering extracurriculars, dorm preferences, etc.

[Anonymous]

Our kids had the choice between these two, one chose Michigan, the other Georgetown (school for Foreign Service) - both took advantage of the things each school had to offer, the differences in the academic programs, the different social opportunities, different intern/school supported advancement programs etc.

Both are great institutions that fit each of the kids just fine. No complaints about either in terms of experience or outcomes.