Pros and cons of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Princeton, and MIT. Looking for any information including housing and social life.
@iriquois - My son will be applying later this year to both Michigan and Princeton PhD programs (aerospace engineering), so I can help a little bit. First, congratulations, those are three great options!
We have never visited MIT, so I don’t know anything specific. Clearly, it’s an urban campus in a great city, so it will be quite different than Michigan or Princeton.
Princeton is in a small city. We have not yet visited, but we’ve learned a few things. The city of Princeton pretty much revolves around the University. Princeton U is right off major railroad connectors to nearby New York and Philadelphia, with a short spur that actually goes right to campus. I’m sure that there are many great student hangouts.
I got my MBA from Michigan and we visited four years ago on a college visit and last January for a graduate school visit. Ann Arbor deserves its reputation as one of the top college towns in the country. There are an enormous number of restaurants, bars, and coffee houses. Zingerman’s Deli is one of the best restaurants anywhere and has spun off six or seven other restaurants and food businesses. The university brings in top entertainment from around the world and there are other music venues and galleries around town.
Michigan is a huge university, much larger than either Princeton or MIT, with 29,000 undergraduate students and over 15,000 graduate students. As a Big Ten school, sports are huge, if that is of any interest.
Michigan does offer grad-student housing on North Campus a bus ride from Central Campus where the Chemistry Department is located. http://housing.umich.edu/grad Of course, there are many off-campus options.
Do you actually have offers from all three, or just dreaming? Beyond that, MIT and Pton are ranked higher (generallh top 10) than Michigan (20+), which in some lists, is ranked lower than Michigan State for Chem. Since academia is all about prestige, if nothing else, I’d recommend higher is better unless you hate suburban NJ or Cambridge or have family reasons to be in AA. (Spouse, for example.)
thank you so much for your insights!
Yes, my son has offers from all 3 schools and needs to make a decision by April 15th! It’s crunch time.
I guess social life for a PhD student is the lab.
If he wants to become a professor than MIT or Princeton.
Depends on how much time and effort you want to put into your social life. In my doctoral program, I prioritized my social life - not over and above academics, but I definitely made the time to socialize. So my social life was far more than my lab but students in other departments and programs, sometimes other schools entirely; the atmosphere and amenities of the city I was in; the cultural activities on offer at my university; etc. I will always cherish the opportunity I had to live in NYC for 6 years and the friendships and connections I forged in the city. My husband and I try to go back and visit relatively often.
I have nothing to offer about these particular universities but I will say that going to graduate school in a large urban area like MIT is going to be very different from being in a small college town. I did my postdoc in a small college town - perhaps not as vibrant as Ann Arbor (it was State College, PA) - and I remember thinking that I couldn’t imagine living there for 6 years in my 20s. It was nice enough, probably a nice place to make a family and a home, but not the kind of social life I wanted for myself.
But I know Ann Arbor is bigger.