One more time: Michigan is not a non-diverse state. It is not “mostly white”. It is similar in proportion to the rest of the country, but with a higher Muslim population. I think many people out there just think the Midwest is full of only white people!
Yes, American colleges will likely put emphasis on American sports. Until ESPN wants to how soccer on Saturdays, it will stay that way, as revenue rules. But with that many kids, you will be hard pressed to think of a sport you can’t find there!
Lastly, sadly most schools see that cafeteria self segregation.
… Can you elaborate a bit regarding “how liberating it is to be surrounded by people who are as intelligent (or more) than you”? It seems terrifying going from top in your class to possibly lower 25%.
Welcome to the real world. There are always going to be faster, bigger, and smarter people than you and these are going to be the folks you will be competing with for your first job.
@Commiserating , It makes you park your ego. I saw this in my grad school class, and to a lesser extent in undergrad. At the beginning everyone was all bluster but as we got to know each other it became deep respect and friendship.
Sorry old fuddy-duddies (myself included), but the acceptable definition of “literally” has expanded to include the informal usage that @klingon97 and @collegestressin demonstrated. Look it up.
Greek life is big at Michigan, especially for underclassmen, and there is no point in denying it. If you are a freshman with no fake id, you will be relying mostly on frats if you are into partying on the weekends. The frats that throw the “best parties” (read: big, hyped about, “great ratios”) are usually your stereotypical white frats. I have had a friend kicked from a frat party because he was a South Asian - and that is just one incident of many. Michigan is definitely moving in the right direction, but there is a lot more work to be done with some portions of the student body. Housing at Michigan does a great job of facilitating a diverse/inclusive community, however.
You may want to double or triple check the stats. Michigan is a very white state with the country’s most segregated communities in the whole USA; all fact. The segregation itself makes it hard to support statements denying this; as segregation itself is a tool twisted by the wrist of racism and powered at the shoulder by divide & conquer. Metropolitan Detroit’s segregation is #1, which means it’s part of the culture at U of M because U of M lies within the highly segregated mass.
Side-bar: It’s interesting reading how people here write their thoughts and opinions as if it’s a mandate that they become the still-point of the turning world for the others here. Be you agree of not, from where I sit that dismissive tone is a characteristic of racism itself. Thoughts?
@DreamCrow I fail to see your overall point. U of M is not a city, it is a university that accepts students of various backgrounds, races, ethnicities, etc. It is not like the government made it so that only whites or only blacks live in certain parts of campus. 90-95% of the people you will be interacting with are U of M students, so I’m unsure how what you’re saying even relates back to diversity/inclusion on campus. Don’t come in here to push your agenda without having a valid reason.
@DreamCrow , people see what they want to see. Michigan is not Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor is not Detroit, and Detroit is not metro Detroit. Michigan does not use race as a criteria for admissions but Michigan has programs to assure that minority (especially black) students succeed and graduate once they are admitted. For instance one of the learning communities on North Campus is designed to help minority students navigate campus life, and the program participants start school about 6 weeks early. I have had several friend’s children go though that program and it was a big help. They graduated from CoE - no easy feat for anyone - and did quite well despite attending marginal schools in the Detroit area.
There are few blacks at Michigan because there are fewer qualified black applicants as a percentage of the state population. Michigan has far more Asian students as a percentage of state population because there are more qualified Asian applicants. Also, you need to look at the demographics of 18 year olds which is markedly different than the overall state population.
My understanding of the low % of black students at UMich is that it’s due to yield. There is a limited pool of high stats black applicants, and these few applicants get courted and fought over by all the selective schools. The black applicants who get into UMich elect to go to ivy instead.
The simple fact that the PSAT cutoff for National Achievement is lower than the cutoff for National Merit Commended is an indication of how small the black pool is.
“You may want to double or triple check the stats. Michigan is a very white state with the country’s most segregated communities in the whole USA; all fact.”
<=== The Michigan campus has students from all 50 states and, probably, 100 foreign countries;
<=== There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the views held off of the Michigan campus are held by the students on the Michigan campus;
The segregation itself makes it hard to support statements denying this; as segregation itself is a tool twisted by the wrist of racism and powered at the shoulder by divide & conquer.
<=== Nobody denies that racism exists;
<=== I would even guess that people would agree that racism exists on the Michigan campus; I would, however, argue that it is grown on campus but is more likely an import;
<=== The point of attending university isn’t to reengineer your emotions, but to become more knowledgeable about the world that one lives in; to learn how to appraise people accurately and to treat them with the fairness which they deserve;
Metropolitan Detroit’s segregation is #1, which means it’s part of the culture at U of M because U of M lies within the highly segregated mass.
<=== This statement is topologically inaccurate: UM doesn’t lie within Detroit nor within the highly segregated mass (<=== whatever that means…);
<=== There is no transitivity which requires Michigan students to be or to become racists;
Side-bar: It’s interesting reading how people here write their thoughts and opinions as if it’s a mandate that they become the still-point of the turning world for the others here. Be you agree of not, from where I sit that dismissive tone is a characteristic of racism itself. Thoughts?
<=== Your side-bar is a supposition and doesn’t appear to find any support in anything other than your egocentrism;
<=== Your arguments are being dismissed because: 1) they appear to be statistically synoptic and comprehensive with no apparent quantitative support; 2) they are modeled in flowery language – or an attempt thereat – without being sufficiently well formed to carry your argument; 3) you are using some form of transitivity which finds no support in reality (you might want to read K. Arrow on this topic); 4) you may kid yourself that you are being dismissed as a matter of racism, but maybe, just maybe, your arguments are poorly formed and unworthy of consideration; maybe you find a lack of respect in life not due to your racial attributes, but to the assumptions and baggage which you bring to your interactions;
For my part, I would argue that fighting racism is a purely a function of treating people as individuals and not as members of an undifferentiated class. Treating people as individuals means approaching them with no preconceptions or baggage. In contrast, your reduction of the problem to “Michigan is a very white state” and, roughly paraphrased, the “the culture at Michigan is racist by proximity to racist Detroit” is racist in the extreme. You should be ashamed of your “logic” and the characteristics which you impute to Michigan students.
My takeaway is that you have a lot to learn. Come to Michigan and throw yourself into the fray. Come back in 4-6 years and let us know where you stand. If you can do that, I won’t automatically adopt your arguments as true, but I’ll give them a hearing. At this point, I can’t support your style and form of argumentation.
BTW: DreamCrow…other posters have it right: 1) the place to fix the enrollment on the Michigan campus is not at the end of the pipeline when kids are largely – for better or worse – locked into a trajectory; 2) the right place to fix the pipeline is at K-12; 3) many billions have been spent on K-12 but K-12 will never be fixed as long as the historical legacy of racism doesn’t allow URMs to approach the system on the basis of developmental and educational equality; 4) in consequence fixing K-12 means fixing the root cause of racism, but this country is not there yet, despite the manifest necessity of getting there.
If you want to fix root causes, fix K-12. Despite the billions referred to, K-12 simply does not put enough URM children into the pipeline. Michigan, a public institution bound by public laws, has done its best and spent many millions on leveling the playing field. If you want Michigan to continue to fight this fight, you need to create a legal foundation for it to do so. The laws no longer favor Michigan using bright-line distinctions when admitting children. The problem is K-12 and K-12 is where you should start if you hope to “fix the system”.
@blue85, I think the fix is under way now with the large percentage of Detroit schoolkids attending charter and not horrible unionized DFT public schools. We won’t see the results for a decade or more. If you look what Focus:Hope has done in Detroit it’s clear that the kids are smart and motivated when given the proper guidance and opportunity. Michigan has largely removed financial issues for in-state kids.
I wonder if the OP decided to attend Michigan. I hope he took a trip from Chicago in April to go experience the vast diversity on the campus in real life, instead of just relying on this CC site for opinions.