<p>I attended the U of Michigan in the early 1970s.</p>
<p>It has everything that you could want or need. BUT, it won’t find you, you have to go find what you want. It is the antithesis of high school in that regard - no one is looking out for you but you.</p>
<p>Parent here…</p>
<p>DS spent his first year at UMASS and found it real easy to NOT GO to class when there were 500 people - including 6 dormmates - enrolled. He transferred to a mid-size school (8K) and graduates next month.</p>
<p>My daughter applied to both large research universities and liberal arts colleges. When accepted student days rolled around, she visited several of the schools that accepted her. She decided against LAC’s when she wasn’t prepared for the large fraction of the student body that consisted of recruited athletes who seemed to place sports and partying ahead of studies. Some were even surprised that she had gotten in (and was offered merit money) without a sport. </p>
<p>I think she also felt the large schools were friendlier. And, they seemed to have ways to “shrink” the campus via freshman seminars, special interest housing arrangements, faculty living in dorms, all kinds of help for students in freshman science and math classes, etc., probably the private schools much more than the public schools outside of the honors colleges.</p>