<p>I am from a liberal arts college and I applied transfer to U-M for winter semester. I know U-M's academics are generally very great with high ranking in most areas. But most of the ranking address an unviersity's research on graduate program more I think. I am wondering can U-M undergraduate students get enough chances talking with professors or have low student-professor ratio for lectures ? I hope to spend my undergraduate years with much discussion and communication with professor, so I am wondering if U-M could be a good choice for me. Thanks very much!</p>
<p>Among research universities, Michigan is definitely undergraduate friendly. Talking to professors is pretty easy to do, and most classes are discussion based, especially once you get past intro-level classes, which are not intended to be discusion-based in the first place. Michigan is often noted for excellent undergraduate teaching. </p>
<p>This said, you may wish to consider tiny liberal arts colleges like Oberlin or Grinnell. Faculty at major research universities do not usually enjoy spending much time in discussion with undergrads. As a rule, faculty at universities with more than 5,000 undergraduate students and with thousands of graduate students will not be able to provide undergraduate students with the presonalized attention some students seek/require.</p>
<p>Thanks very much! Since I checked US NEW about U-M it said that the student-faculty ratio at U-M is actually 16:1, which is really great to me. I really love talk to professors more and learn from them. So I am wondering if I can still talk to professor who teach undergrates often? Please do not let me know most faculties who teach undergraduate at U-M are mostly graduate students…</p>
<p>Graduate students only teach 1% of intermediate/advanced level classes at Michigan. </p>
<p>Generally speaking, faculty will make sufficient time for students individually after class to answer questions and explain concepts that they do not understand. However, faculty will make time for students to teach them additional material or to have intellectial conversations with them. For that, you are better off at a liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Thank you so much! U-M is good enough. Thank you !</p>
<p>I actually had lunch with a prof at Paneras today. Here’s the thing though. They’re very busy and delegate a lot of the non-lecture to the GSIs. The discussion sections and all the emails are often taken by grad students. If you can’t make the prof office hours (one of mine does appointment only), you need to speak up even in a huge lecture or have some major issue, or you’re limited to the 5-10 minutes between classes. They won’t know or really care about you. In traditional classes of 20-30 and no GSI, you might have more luck. There are some freshman seminars, but this mostly won’t happen till junior year.</p>
<p>The reason i had that opportunity is I’m stuck with a dysfunctional group in a class that takes the same tests twice, individually and as a team…and my group score is doing far worse than i am, which is like, total crap. Another thing to keep in mind, being some published expert in some subfield doesn’t mean they’re going to be any good at or care about teaching compared to their research. There’s a couple profs I wouldn’t want to have lunch with.</p>
<p>@steellord321: Well that’s why I prefer Liberal Arts life so much. But when you are going to apply to graduate school, how can undergraduate professor know you and write recommendation letters for you?</p>
<p>Have to speak up in class even if big lecture like I said, or go to office hours and talk about your term papers or something. Most recs would come from 300-400 level where the prof teaches in a normal small room and can actually get to know you. The recs I’ve seen in files are mostly like that. Either way, grad admission outcomes from this school is pretty good, so it must be possible.</p>
<p>Thank you very much! I got it!</p>
<p>16-1? On what planet?</p>