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My daughter was accepted with a 3.8 or 3.9 and something below a 30 (26 or 27 I think). I think the high school makes a difference. Our high school does nto grade inflate, thus a 3.8 or 3.9 put her in the top ten graduates in her class. Some high schools graduate 20+ with 4.0 averages. The colleges have to adjust for that.
She applied so late they did not accept her until she was already signed up at Dearborn with a scholarship. She decided to just transfer to AA after her first year.
She got busy and did not look into the transfer situation until about December and by then it was too late to transfer.
During her second year (or maybe it was third year) she looked into transferring. She learned her honors classes would not transfer, she could no longer be in the honors program if she transferred and she would lose some of her credits. One of her professors offered to work directly with her if she stayed and ensure she got some meaningful research experience, plus make certain she woudl get excellent reference letters from several professors. In Ann Arbor, she woudl be taught by T.A.s or in classes with hundreds of students and probably never get to work with a professor at all. Thus, she decided to stay at Dearborn. She found she liked the atmosphere better there anyway (plus Dearborn is a lot cheaper). A visit to a friend in Ann Arbor also helped cement her decision. Her friend's friends were all chatty and nice to her, very convivial and respectful. Then they asked her about some class and she said "Oh I go to Dearborn" Almost immediately they stopped talking to her.
A family friend was choosing between U-M and MSU. U-M was clearly the more highly regarded school. However when she visited U-M they spent the entire day telling her how great U-M is and what a wonderful legacy they have. When she visited State, they asked her about her and who she was looking for and explained how MS could give her what she wanted. She chose MSU.
U-M Ann Arbor certainly provides more opportunities and a better name recognition. I expect hanging out in dorms with all the academic elite and discussing classes results in a better overall education. However I am not sure Ann Arbor is worth the added cost for undergraduate education. It is the grad schools where Ann Arbor really excels. If you are going to grad school anyway, it seems more practical to go somewhere less expensive and likely more fun and just excel there, then go to Ann Arbor for grad school. I know from personal experience if you graduate form U-M upper level schooling, where you went for undergraduate does not matter one whit. No one cares. (I went to WSU undergrad and U-m Law school. I got the same job opportunities/offers as my peers who went to much more highly regarded undergraduate institutions.).
U-M Dearborn is just as good as the AA campus; the main difference is the sheer size. I mean, you can't be a second-rater and teach for long at any UofM campus.
U-M Dearborn is totally different from U-M Ann Arbor, and is regarded as a separate entity. No one would mistake one for the other.
That doesn't mean Dearborn isn't a good school, though. I generally hear good things about the business program.
One thing that annoys me, though, about Ann Arbor, is the arrogance. I don't get it. It's never even ranked nationally in the Top 25, yet a typical Michigan grad is more arrogant than the typical Harvard grad. I don't think Michigan grads are aware there are many top schools out there, and Michigan is nowhere near the top of the list nationally.
Michigan accepts something like half its applicants. Ivy League places like Harvard and Columbia accept like 5% of their applicants. Yet I guarantee the Michigan grad will be super upfront and in-your-face about their alma mater, and the Harvard or Columbia grad will be totally blase.
To each their own, I guess. Our daughter has never been happy at Dearborn, even with being a part of the Honors program. We live an hour away from the campus and since they aren't going to offer student housing until next year, she commutes and isn't able to participate much in campus activities, due to only being there two days a week. Ann Arbor, OTOH, is only about twenty minutes from our house, which will make a huge difference, both in cost of commute, wear and tear on her car, and her ability to participate in clubs and organizations on campus. She has never liked how Dearborn doesn't really have a college campus atmosphere in terms of dining options, etc. either. It seems like an all business commuter campus, which was fine for our son because he is more involved in activities in the town where we live so he didn't mind only being on campus twice a week and not being very actively involved in campus activities. Our daughter would like more of the overall college experience, even if it is just joining a Christian campus group or getting together with friends for coffee more than once in a blue moon.
So far, all of our daughter's honors classes are going to transfer, she got an email with the transfer summary a few days ago. The better professors that both she and our son have had at Dearborn also teach at Ann Arbor.
I disagree with the idea that Harvard or Columbia alumni are not as arrogant about their alma maters as U of M graduates, that is a pretty ridiculous statement, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. U of M Ann Arbor accepts 40% of all applicants, which is not Ivy League but still pretty selective for a state school.
In the part of the world where I come from, an undergrad degree from U of M Ann Arbor is pretty highly regarded, certainly much more so than any other four year college in this immediate area. Again, everyone is entitled to their personal opinion.
For us, Ann Arbor just makes more sense, even though our daughter was getting a scholarship at Dearborn that will not apply at AA. She will be much happier, she will have more opportunities for internships, study abroad, etc., and her commute will be much less brutal. It's all good.
To each their own, I guess. Our daughter has never been happy at Dearborn, even with being a part of the Honors program. We live an hour away from the campus and since they aren't going to offer student housing until next year, she commutes and isn't able to participate much in campus activities, due to only being there two days a week. Ann Arbor, OTOH, is only about twenty minutes from our house, which will make a huge difference, both in cost of commute, wear and tear on her car, and her ability to participate in clubs and organizations on campus. She has never liked how Dearborn doesn't really have a college campus atmosphere in terms of dining options, etc. either. It seems like an all business commuter campus, which was fine for our son because he is more involved in activities in the town where we live so he didn't mind only being on campus twice a week and not being very actively involved in campus activities. Our daughter would like more of the overall college experience, even if it is just joining a Christian campus group or getting together with friends for coffee more than once in a blue moon.
So far, all of our daughter's honors classes are going to transfer, she got an email with the transfer summary a few days ago. The better professors that both she and our son have had at Dearborn also teach at Ann Arbor.
I disagree with the idea that Harvard or Columbia alumni are not as arrogant about their alma maters as U of M graduates, that is a pretty ridiculous statement, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. U of M Ann Arbor accepts 40% of all applicants, which is not Ivy League but still pretty selective for a state school.
In the part of the world where I come from, an undergrad degree from U of M Ann Arbor is pretty highly regarded, certainly much more so than any other four year college in this immediate area. Again, everyone is entitled to their personal opinion.
For us, Ann Arbor just makes more sense, even though our daughter was getting a scholarship at Dearborn that will not apply at AA. She will be much happier, she will have more opportunities for internships, study abroad, etc., and her commute will be much less brutal. It's all good.
Interesting her honors classes transfer, our daughter was told they would not transfer, only her regular classes and not all of the credits. I think she maybe had a bad transfer adviser at Ann Arbor, she basically said not to bother transferring and pointed out all the bad things about transfer.
It is good that she will be much happier. If she is unhappy, she will not reach her potential. I loved living in Ann Arbor, it was one of the best times of my life. The atmosphere was certainly stimulating. We woudl have discussions in our room that would go on for days. We woudl go to class and when we came back, different people would be in our room continuing the same discussion as when we left (they came and joined in while we were gone and the original people left). Sometimes we woudl sit up all night talking, or sleep for a few hours and then people woudl come back in the morning to raise something they thought of overnight, then more would join in and it woudl blow up all over again. I think I learned as much or more through discussions with fellow students as I did from my professors. Funny thing is I commuted for U.G. 55 miles but then went to Ann Arbor which was only 16 miles away, but lived on campus.
What field is your daughter in that she could nto do internships form Dearborn? Our daughter did internships through Dearborn and is now responsible for intern placement in her department (I think she gets paid to do that, maybe just credit only).
It is funny the things you list, our daughter does at Dearborn. (Internship, Campus bible study group, pep band) The one thing they are missing for her is a decent choir. They told her she could sing with the Ann Arbor choir, but she did not want to commute over an hour, just for choir. She was entitled to try out for the marching band too, but apparently it is extremely hard to get into marching band and the schedule is rigorous, not way to commute for that. My guess is our daughters know each other since the honors students hang out in the honors lounge.
I am not sure where "not in the top 25" is coming from. I guess it depends on what is being rated. Many of the U-M graduate programs (maybe most of them) and several of the undergraduate programs are rated in the top ten and in some cases they are number 1. I am pretty sure they are number 1 for musical theater which is surprising since I do not think of U-M as an arts school. I know there are other top ten programs, but I would have to look to jog my memory.
I just looked up Mechanical engineering programs for our son and U-M Ann Arbor is 5th or 6th in the US. I was surprised that none of the other Michigan schools were listed in the top 10, we have some good engineering schools in MI (U-M, MSU, Kettering, MIT, Laurence, WSU, I cannot remember the others, but they were not ranked as highly as I expected them to be.) Since he will ultimately get a masters, I expect our son will chose a cheaper school with a better rowing team. As long as he does well enough to get into a top grad school it does not matter where he is an U.G. if he does not have the grades, test scores and accomplishments for a good masters program, then it will not matter where he went U.G. They are not going to take a B student from U-M over an A student with better test scores and some research accomplishments from say Grand Valley.
If he was going to stop at a BS, then U-M would be the best option we can afford. Their graduates reportedly end up with multiple job offers by graduation. Part of that is reputation and part is probably the alumni network.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 04-11-2013 at 03:04 PM..
Interesting her honors classes transfer, our daughter was told they would not transfer, only her regular classes and not all of the credits. I think she maybe had a bad transfer adviser at Ann Arbor, she basically said not to bother transferring and pointed out all the bad things about transfer....
What field is your daughter in that she could nto do internships form Dearborn? Our daughter did internships through Dearborn and is now responsible for intern placement in her department (I think she gets paid to do that, maybe just credit only)....
It is funny the things you list, our daughter does at Dearborn. (Internship, Campus bible study group, pep band) The one thing they are missing for her is a decent choir. They told her she could sing with the Ann Arbor choir, but she did not want to commute over an hour, just for choir. She was entitled to try out for the marching band too, but apparently it is extremely hard to get into marching band and the schedule is rigorous, not way to commute for that. My guess is our daughters know each other since the honors students hang out in the honors lounge....
Wow, we are having the polar opposite experience. Ann Arbor is killing us with kindness and help. I'm not sure why the difference, because I can tell that your daughter is outstanding and would have been an asset to them as well.
I didn't say our daughter couldn't find internships, just that there is the opportunity for many more of them at Ann Arbor. She is in Environmental Science, which is (I think) a relatively new program at Dearborn, maybe that's why. Dearborn does have a very nice environmental center on campus and access to something like 68 acres of the Henry Ford Estate and the River Rouge Basin, which would be a cool place to study the enivironment, but Ann Arbor offers cool experiences in this field too.
I'm not sure if our daughters would know each other because our daughter is a freshman and doesn't have time to hang out in the honors lounge. She has to cram five classes into two days a week to avoid having to do the two hour round trip commute more than she absolutely has to, especially in the winter semester when the weather gets bad. Some days she barely has time to eat lunch on the fly between classes, and she is there from early morning until after dinner. The clubs that she has expressed an interest in either meet during her class schedule or on days when she isn't in Dearborn. Dearborn does have a small choir, and she expressed an interest in joining because she loves singing and they actually held practices in the evening after her last class, but when she emailed the director (twice), whom she had had for a music history class in her high school dual enrollment year, he never responded, ditto the assistant director (again, twice). She has made one very good friend at Dearborn, but because she doesn't have time to socialize unless she wants to drive there several times a week, it has been pretty lonely for her. She talks to the other students and does class projects, etc. with them, but they all live so far from us that it makes it hard to have meaningful friendships since she can't easily hang out with anyone regularly who lives an hour or more away.
It sounds like your daughter's commute from GI to AA would be about as rigorous as our daughter's commute from NW Monroe County to Dearborn. Not fun, especially when gas is $3.85/gallon and up.
Last edited by canudigit; 04-12-2013 at 07:03 AM..
Wow, we are having the polar opposite experience. Ann Arbor is killing us with kindness and help. I'm not sure why the difference, because I can tell that your daughter is outstanding and would have been an asset to them as well.
I didn't say our daughter couldn't find internships, just that there is the opportunity for many more of them at Ann Arbor. She is in Environmental Science, which is (I think) a relatively new program at Dearborn, maybe that's why. Dearborn does have a very nice environmental center on campus and access to something like 68 acres of the Henry Ford Estate and the River Rouge Basin, which would be a cool place to study the enivironment, but Ann Arbor offers cool experiences in this field too.
I'm not sure if our daughters would know each other because our daughter is a freshman and doesn't have time to hang out in the honors lounge. She has to cram five classes into two days a week to avoid having to do the two hour round trip commute more than she absolutely has to, especially in the winter semester when the weather gets bad. Some days she barely has time to eat lunch on the fly between classes, and she is there from early morning until after dinner. The clubs that she has expressed an interest in either meet during her class schedule or on days when she isn't in Dearborn. Dearborn does have a small choir, and she expressed an interest in joining because she loves singing and they actually held practices in the evening after her last class, but when she emailed the director (twice), whom she had had for a music history class in her high school dual enrollment year, he never responded, ditto the assistant director (again, twice). She has made one very good friend at Dearborn, but because she doesn't have time to socialize unless she wants to drive there several times a week, it has been pretty lonely for her. She talks to the other students and does class projects, etc. with them, but they all live so far from us that it makes it hard to have meaningful friendships since she can't easily hang out with anyone regularly who lives an hour or more away.
It sounds like your daughter's commute from GI to AA would be about as rigorous as our daughter's commute from NW Monroe County to Dearborn. Not fun, especially when gas is $3.85/gallon and up.
Yes. 2 days a week as a commuting freshman is probably a mistake. Hopefully she can spread her classes out at Ann Arbor. Although less convenient, it is better socially and for learning outside the classroom, which is critical.
The Dearborn choir is kind of an ad hoc choir (show up when you want to). They are loosely organized. The Ann Arbor choir is the opposite and is super competitive to get in and well as demanding, however there are many other choirs and signing groups. That is a great way for your daughter to meet people, particularly people form other majors (many students end up isolated with people from their major alone, and if your major is engineering, well you spend your time socializing with engineers).
Our niece majored in environmental something or other. She got a job with the EPA. She carries a gun and inspects ships coming into the US. (Which is funny because she is tiny blonde who looks like a model and takes flies outside rather than killing them). Not exactly what she had in mind and she hates carrying a gun, but it is a job in her field and pays decently.
Commuting is tough socially. When I did it I was lucky because I was in a carpool with six people and then a made an early friend who was in a giant carpool with 110 people, so I made friends from those two groups. Our daughter has some friends through Dearborn, but nowhere near as many nor as close of friends as her twin sister who attends Eastern and lived on campus for two years. Despite the cost, I think it is beneficial for kids to live on campus, at least for a time. That is how you make those lifelong friends for the most part (I had a couple such friends from when I commuted, but not many, far more of them are from the place I worked, from high school, or from when I lived on campus for law school at U-M. While I had quite a few friends from college, they were not so close that we stayed in tough after graduation (with one exception).
In case it hasn't been mentioned yet, Dearborn has dorms now. They will be available in the fall.
Yes, and judging by the onslaught of emails, snail mails, phone messages, and text messages my daughter has been getting about them, they must be having a hard time filling them up, which kind of surprises me, because it looks like they are going to be very nice. To tell you the truth, I thought they would all be spoken for before now.
There is a certain professor at Dearborn that our son and daughter both have for an instructor this semester who is making disparaging comments to his students about the quality of construction of the new dorms and the use of non-union labor in building them. I'm surprised the university doesn't say something to him, unless they don't know what he is doing. From what my kids tell me, he is being quite vocal about it.
Last edited by canudigit; 04-12-2013 at 07:56 PM..
Haven't heard any of that, but what I can say is that the dorms are for profit. They are financed by a private investor.
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