<p>[Compare</a> Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.](<a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>http://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=University+of+Michigan+-+Ann+Arbor&with=Michigan+State+University)</p>
<p>According to that, 20% of cross admits chose MSU. Don’t know how accurate it is.</p>
<p>18% apparently choose Oakland over Ann Arbor…in other words, BS. As an MSU alum, you’re embarrassing me with your try-hard antics. I question the aptitude of elite students who REALLY choose East Lansing over Ann Arbor. A B+ average HS student can buckle down in East Lansing and accomplish amazing things, but don’t tell me 20% of kids who bust their fanny for 4-years to earn the 3.8 and 30 ACT to get into Ann Arbor opt out and choose State. Not a chance.</p>
<p>You have no idea what you are talking about. This is exactly the elitist attitude that turned my son off of U of M.</p>
<p>So your son was insecure about being in such a hyper-competitive environment and found the relaxed atmosphere, or big fish smaller pond, easier to be in?</p>
<p>Try hard? I actually didn’t make any comments about the figures, just found it interesting.</p>
<p>I truly don’t give a rat’s behind about what anyone thinks about my life decisions. You asked why one would choose MSU over Michigan. I answered from my experience and those of my friends.</p>
<p>You really don’t get it. You just don’t. </p>
<p>You know what? I’m one of those 18% Oakland people, and my stats surpassed several in my school who chose U of M. Now you’re just insulting anyone who doesn’t go to U of M. It’s not all about prestige. </p>
<p>I’m a farmer, and my family was ready to throw me out of the will after deciding to go to college. Do you really think I was going to put myself into that kind of debt when I had a guaranteed full ride from Oakland? No. </p>
<p>Am I just as smart and competitive and intellectual as my peers and others who went to U of M? Yes. </p>
<p>Am I thriving with attention from professors and research opportunities because I’m still at that high-caliber level? Yes. </p>
<p>Will I still end up at a good grad school? Yes. </p>
<p>You’re just another reason why everyone laughs and snickers at the colors of blue and maize. It doesn’t have to be like that, but people like you make it so.</p>
<p>“I used to believe friends in undergrad that said they were accepted by both, but now I find it REALLY hard to believe. That’s all.”</p>
<p>Why do you even care?</p>
<p>All I know is for an engineer we have 300 companies come to our career fairs each time (we have two a year) and as result I am able to more easily seek these internship opportunities which puts me at a huge advantage come full time. The school you went to doesn’t matter after college… it’s what you did during your years in college that sets the stage. And being able to pursue the solar car team and have easy access to internships at large companies are just amazing.</p>
<p>Furthermore every single grad school admissions staff will tell you the prestige of the school is definitely taken into account (5-10% if just some numbers I’ve heard thrown around by them).</p>
<p>I’ve known a number of people who got into both but chose Michigan State. I’ve also known people with very strong academic credentials who never even applied to Michigan because they preferred State. If you look at the data, it’s pretty clear that roughly the top quartile of MSU’s student body has academic credentials that would make them competitive for admission to Michigan–not that they’re all admitted, and many don’t even apply. Given the choice, most people choose Michigan, but it’s not irrational to choose State for financial reasons (usually a big merit award because MSU’s need-based aid is weak), or for a particular program, or because of family loyalties, or for reasons of personal preference.</p>
<p>My own brother had MSU as his #1 choice, applied & was accepted, but once he got there he wondered if he had aimed too low. So he applied & was admitted as a transfer student at Michigan for his sophomore year. But it turned out he just didn’t like the feel of Ann Arbor–too urban for him, I guess–and although he was doing OK academically, he found the workload more of a grind at Michigan and not to his liking. So he re-transferred back to MSU for his junior and senior years, and loved it. (Purely anecdotal, but in my experience a lot of kids from small towns and rural areas seem to prefer, or just to be more comfortable with, MSU; Michigan draws its in-state students most heavily from Metro Detroit, especially Oakland County, and its OOS students are mostly from major metropolitan areas like NYC, Chicago, DC, LA, San Francisco, etc.). </p>
<p>I also knew a woman back in my college days who applied and was accepted to both, but she got a big merit scholarship from MSU and a smaller FA award from Michigan. Her father had just died and her mother didn’t have a lot of financial resources, so the merit award made all the difference. She enrolled in MSU’s Honors College and never looked back. She went on to become a superstar in the corporate world.</p>
<p>I had essentially that same choice and chose Michigan, and I’ve never regretted it, either, though it was not an easy decision to make at the time. </p>
<p>I think the Parchment cross-admit figures–80% choose Michigan–is probably petty accurate. But the 20% who choose MSU usually have good reasons. And that doesn’t even begin to count the number of people who apply to one but not both. And yes, some cross-admits do choose Oakland, usually for financial reasons (commuting is cheaper), but sometimes because they just aren’t ready to leave home.</p>
<p>In most instances, it is not wise to choose any school in the state over Michigan, assuming COA is not an issue, and assuming that Michigan is strong in one’s intended field of study.</p>
<p>By the way RTRMom, I never heard anybody refer to Michigan’s 3,000+ acre campus as “urban”. NYU is urban. Boston University is urban. George Washington University is urban. Michigan LSA and Ross are suburban, while Engineering, Architecture and Music are out of town altogether. This said, to anybody who finds Houghton ideal, I guess Ann Arbor would seem like quite the urban jungle. ;)</p>
<p>Nobody has mentioned the fact that studying business at UM is completely uncertain. Students who are interested in studying business may choose MSU because they are guaranteed into the program. In-state students who were accepted to UM may be in touch with reality and understand that Ross is no guarantee. Students with 3.7+ GPAs and decent ECs are sometimes rejected. If you’re not accepted? Economics? What if that doesn’t interest you? What if you’re set on Marketing? (not saying Mich LSA won’t open up doors for anyone, but it should be considered).</p>
<p>That said, I do think UM is the smarter choice for 80%+ students.</p>
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<p>If you can’t hack it at Ross, I’d still rather have the econ degree (and business minor) from Michigan than a marketing or finance degree from Broad.</p>
<p>I would too, but 1) The ross business minor isn’t a gimme either. 2) many people are not interested in econ.</p>
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<p>I know you’re being tongue-in-cheek here, Alexandre, but I have to disagree with you. To my sensibilities, Michigan’s central campus doesn’t feel “suburban” at all. Central Ann Arbor and the neighborhoods around central campus have a quite dense urban feel, with lots of apartment buildings and 2-4 flat houses, small lot sizes, few driveways and little off-street parking (except in large parking ramps), busy urban-style business streets (continuous “street wall,” no strip malls), lots of pedestrian traffic, and fairly heavy automobile traffic. That’s not “suburban.” Granted, it’s not Manhattan, but it does feel like what it is, which is the urban hub of a medium-sized metropolitan area (the Ann Arbor metro area has about 350,000 people, according to the Census Bureau). Most of Michigan’s 3,000 acres are on North Campus, the south campus athletic complex, and the Arb, which is a bit removed from the central campus. The Central Campus proper–let’s say from the Hill dorms on the east, to Hill Street on the south, to Division on the west, to E. Huron on the north–is substantially less than a square mile, and a square mile is only 640 acres. I’m going to guess the university-owned property within those bounds is more like 160 acres, and it’s interspersed with some busy thoroughfares like State St., South U., and E. Huron.</p>
<p>Michigan State is much less dense, with more open space, spread over 5,000 contiguous acres. Personally, I can’t stand that everything at Michigan State is so spread out and far apart–the epitome of sprawl–but some people apparently like it that way.</p>
<p>The two campuses have very different “feels,” and Michigan’s is more urban, though in a low-key way. Like many people, I really like how seamlessly the university is connected with the town, but I can see how people with different tastes might prefer something else.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, State has a beautiful campus. But the 5,000 acres of State–of which the average Spartan encounters 10%–are all in play. But you manage to shrink Michigan’s 3,000 acres down to 640 (or 160) in order to make your argument that Michigan feels like a condensed “urban” campus. Further, town for town, a lot of East Lansing right now looks like a ghetto urban mess. Ann Arbor isn’t perfect, and the townies can be sketch, but the town of Ann Arbor destroys East Lansing/Lansing. I can understand a student not wanting an urban environment, but Ann Arbor is not an urban environment. And not sure why metro area pop was referenced, Lansing metro area has 450k.</p>
<p>From an out of state perspective, I have to say that Michigan residents are incredibly fortunate to have the University of Michigan, ranked as one of the top universities in the world, as their in-state flagship. You are about the luckiest people in the US, along with Californians (Berkeley), Virginians (UVA) and North Carolinians (UNC). </p>
<p>Certainly there are some students for whom every additional dollar of college cost is a burden. For those in-state students, I understand that MSU may be the better choice. But for the rest of the in-state students, if I were your parent, and you had a choice between MSU and Michigan, I would do my absolute best to get you to see all that Michigan offers for 4 years and many years to come. Yes, it matters a lot how well you do in school, but don’t undersell the alumni network, which for Michigan is worldwide. (That fight song!) Some of the reasons stated in this thread for choosing MSU (not urban, laid back, residential colleges) may not be significant in a year or so.</p>
<p>For out of state students, Michigan can be very expensive, as Michigan does not meet need. I am guessing that many (or most) of these kids who turn down Michigan due to cost end up at school other than MSU. </p>
<p>I hope Michigan wises up and improves financial aid. They are very uncompetitive.</p>
<p>It’s funny. Where I work right now (for the state) the main people have degrees from Michigan, Michigan State, Wayne State, and Eastern. All working the same job. All getting paid the same amount. Except the one from Eastern- she’s our boss. </p>
<p>Do I doubt that having a Michigan degree can give you a boost in some areas? No. However, I don’t think it’s the be-all end-all that some make it out to be. </p>
<p>It just amazes me so much that people care so much about decisions other people make. It’s almost like it affects them somehow. </p>
<p>And hey, I might’ve made some waitlisted kid at U of M really happy in 2009 :)</p>
<p>“Yes, it matters a lot how well you do in school, but don’t undersell the alumni network, which for Michigan is worldwide.”</p>
<p>Michigan State also has ~500,000 alumni worldwide.</p>
<p>^^I was going to mention that 
Twitter also said yesterday that MSU license plates outnumber UofM license plates :-)</p>
<p>I happen to personally prefer the state campus with all the green space and trees and contiguous feel than the split in Ann Arbor between North and the the central campus and the hospital area. But I’m kind of a “greenie” type person. UofM “feels” more urban simply because it sprawled within pockets of the town while MSU feels like it is separated (and it is to some degree) from Lansing as the town of East Lansing. I also think the historic part of MSU’s campus is breathtakingly beautiful. The old parts of Michigan are pretty, also, but just not as lush or as big as north campus is in Lansing…and you gotta admit having the Cedar River run through the campus has it’s charm and it’s a bit of a hike to the Huron River Parkway. I also have to admit I walked the MSU campus for the first time in my 50+ years this year…I’d never done much but pull into the Kellogg Center or the union when my kids were little and in state chess tournaments. So yeah, there is a difference in ‘feeling’ between the two campuses. I also think MSU has done a good job with it’s residential neighborhood concept and I think 20% feels like an accurate number. We ARE lucky in the state of Michigan to have 2 choices for top college bound students.</p>
<p>Darkoni, it would not be a big fish, small pond at MSU…they are probably pretty close in size, certainly at the undergraduate level.</p>
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<p>Au contraire, Ann Arbor IS an urban environment, and that’s what I like about it. To many of us “urban” is not a pejorative. I’ve lived in New York, Boston, Chicago, and DC, among others. I like cities. I like urban. Much of what I like about Ann Arbor is that it’s urban in a lively and sophisticated way, but in a manageable small package.</p>
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<p>Because many people not familiar with Ann Arbor–especially people from the coasts–often mischaracterize it as either a “small town” or a “suburb.” It’s neither a small town nor a suburb. It’s a small city at the heart of a moderately sized metropolitan area of its own, and an economically dynamic, affluent, and culturally sophisticated one. East Lansing is part of a similarly sized metropolitan area, but economically a much more troubled one, and without as much in the way of cultural offerings and urban amenities as Ann Arbor offers. </p>
<p>But because the MSU campus is so large, contiguous, and self-contained, it doesn’t even feel all that connected to the suburban community of East Lansing in some ways–much less to the city of Lansing. It’s like a separate world of its own. Some people like that. I don’t.</p>