<p>What the heck is your intended topic? People keep chancing you and saying you’ll get in (you will). You keep bumping asking for assurance, like an anonymous guy who is interested in the same school as you has any say in anything. I know college apps can be a tough/stressful time for some, but at least be confident in your accomplishment. Being this sad, mopey guy just doesn’t benefit anyone (especially you)</p>
<p>you could go to scraft…</p>
<p>Seriously, close this mother****ing thread.</p>
<p>@ Walkman24 - I’d just like to see what other CC posters believe my ultimate outcome will be. I placed this is in the UMich section because I believe that’s where it will get the attention it deserves from people with experience with the school, as opposed to the “What are my Chances?” forum, where everyone is conditioned to chancing kids for HYPSM. I’m really not a “sad, mopey guy” as you so eloquently put it. You can only get so much info from a university’s website, so outsider opinions are often reassuring and beneficial.</p>
<p>@ goblue418 - I think I’ll pass, lol.</p>
<p>Acta, you won’t know what MSU would give you unless you apply, and I personally see no reason NOT to, especially if you have a 529. MSU is well regarded on a regional level and their honors program is particularly suited to some. While I agree that UMich sounds like a perfect fit, I also know a lot of gifted students who selected MSU Honors with very nice merit offers that made it worth their while – and who enjoyed their time there (including my husband, who studied engineering there full ride about 100 years ago 
While my loyalties lie east of Spartanland, as you can guess, I know many survivors. (Just kidding to all those surreptitious spartan readers…)</p>
<p>SO, if you were considering a backup plan of “two years then transfer worst case scenario” I feel you’d do well to at least apply to MSU honors along with Wayne State. I don’t think you’d need it, but I think it’s a good safety plan.</p>
<p>PS - I don’t know a lot about Oakland but I am pretty certain that its rank would suggest it is less likely to equip you nearly as well for eventual study at UMich as MSU Honors would. I would be careful about forming perceptions based on the idea of ‘free.’ Sometimes the way that works is pay now or pay later. Eg. attend the most rigorous institution you can afford if you intend to go into pharmacy.</p>
<p>@ kmccrindle - Thanks for all of your help; you’ve been particularly knowledgeable and kind with your responses. I think I have a good idea of what the best route for me is now.</p>
<p>Excellent. Just one more thing for you to think about, although you don’t have to get into it on this thread if you don’t want. Just food for though during your application process:</p>
<p>UMich is an instate “meets need” school, meaning if when you say your family doesn’t have much money and the school agrees, via fafsa and the CSS form, it will cobble together a package that includes grants, loans etc. to get you to the full price. In that case, depending on what you needed versus what’s in the 529 and met, you may end up with about $5500 in loans each year approx. That is pretty typical.</p>
<p>At MSU, by comparison, if your family were very low earners and had a zero on the EFC, (go to [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.com%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.com) if you want to see an EFC calculator) they have a program that converts your loans to grants, meaning you do not incur the loan at all. This is only in effect, I believe, for very financially challenged families, but since you mentioned not having a lot of money, I am letting you know something else about MSU as a “financial” safety that may (or may not) benefit you. Don’t know about the other schools, nor do I know your particular circumstances.</p>
<p>Lastly, you do not need to apply out of state and to my mind you’re on the right track. You’re very fortunate (as we are) that Michigan has a world class university! But I will tell you that I know several students who applied to highly ranked private universities/LACs who ended up with very generous financial packages – some examples – full amount/ride to Northwestern (a combo of merit and need money), generous packages for WUSTL, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Bryn Mawr, Smith, etc. Some of my college-parent-friends have often said that my son, who went to the same magnet school, might have gotten more money OOS, although he did receive two scholarships at UMich. In their cases, they paid more for UMich for some of their children than for other of their children who went to privates with merit.</p>
<p>This does not in any way mean that UMich is not wholly worth its price - and as I said, it meets need. I just wanted you to be aware that sometimes whole-family-cost for some top students can in fact be less – especially for middle class families who are not deemed to warrant a lot of aid. So sometimes, when you see students applying to a bunch of OOS schools, they aren’t just wasting their money. They’re actually trying to leverage their school performance to see what’s out there in terms of merit or need packages, which vary wildly.</p>
<p>So if you have any financial reservations at all, maybe discuss with your guidance counselor whether students with your stats have attended OOS schools and which schools seem to like some of your top students in terms of scholarship. Your GC should be able to put you in touch with alumni who’ve had experience with this. If your school has Naviance, you can glean this info from the statistics.</p>
<p>At any rate, good luck. I am confident you have everything it takes to navigate this process well.
Cheers,
K</p>