<p>berurah & Bridie - Congrats to your S's on UMich news! With more to come, UMich has made the stack of choices very strong indeed. My S, 2003 grad, turned down Northwestern and Vanderbilt for what became the most amazing experience for him. Like dstark's D, he did not have large classes during his freshman year. A shocker to me, as I went to big UC and never had those itty bitty class sizes until jr/sr year in my major. He double-majored - poli sci and history and has gone on to law school. Undergrad poli sci dept is ranked #3 by some organization I can't recall (for those who care about such things...). As a sports nut, the Big House (football stadium) and Yost Arena (hockey) were his homes away from home. Great college town! S now a proud member of the largest alumni association in the country (world?). No wonder so many are here on CC.</p>
<p>Maize&Blue,</p>
<p>All these Michigan fans whose kids have had wonderful experiences there are really building our enthusiasm even more!! It sounds like your son made the <em>perfect</em> choice for him, and I keep having this feeling that my son would be totally in his element there also. He is quite the sports fan too. Do you mind saying where your own son went on to law school? I have heard that Michigan also has a great law school. Just wondering where your Michigan grad. went.... ~berurah</p>
<p>berurah - </p>
<p>I'm probably giving you more info than you need re: law school stuff. Michigan has a top tier (#5?) law school. Fortunately, or unfortunately, that one was out of his reach. S is at U of Wisconsin, Madison, having selected that instead of WUStL Law for a variety of reasons, including the location as a state capitol and another great college town. We were somewhat involved with his process while putting the pieces together with our hs D in her undergrad search. Extremely different focuses. If you have had the opportunity to read Ariesthena's thoughtful posts for the past year and a half regarding law school admissions process, it's an eye-opener. Very numbers driven (and UMich is not known for grade inflation) with very little holistic review. In that sense, you pretty much know where you stand and it's a bit less stressful than what you are experiencing now for undergrad. One-stop shopping via the LSAC website. All applications, recommendations and test-scores are submitted to schools from this one organization. Law schools recently have notoriously waitlisted (seems like every applicant). S applied to 17 (yup!), waitlisted at 8, denied to 4. Something to look forward to if your S moves on to a professional school in 4 years...:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Berurah, just wanted to add my congratulations though late to this thread!</p>
<p>Maize&Blue,</p>
<p>Trust me, you can never give me more information than I need! <em>lol</em> </p>
<p>First of all, I would have to say that I've never seen anyone who has chosen a more delightful college path than your son--UMich and U.of Wisconsin, two of the best college towns EVER! After four years in Ann Arbor, he must have really wanted another great place to be, and I've only heard fabulous things about Madison. I hope he is enjoying his tenure there. I am from Austin, another notably wonderful college town, and I can appreciate the advantages of a great college environment.</p>
<p>My son may well end up following the path of yours. He has had a long standing interest in epidemiology and infectious diseases, and he wants to pursue a pre-med type of undergrad. program, BUT, he is quite torn between medicine and law, another area for which he has great passion and incredible potential (he is a pretty talented debater and will be going to nationals in June). Right now, he is considering pursuing a medically-based law field in the future. </p>
<p>I told him about your post and how the law schools tend to be numbers driven, something I can see working in his favor down the line. Is it pretty common for a law school applicant to submit as many apps. as your son did? That seems like a LOT, but then, it sounds like the competition can be fierce. The one-stop shopping sounds like a dream to me--I tend to be quite disorganized! <em>lol</em></p>
<p>I honestly can't imagine going through more than one of these processes at a time, like you did with your daughter and your son. When my son goes to graduate school, though, my second will be in college and my third just entering! Yikes! </p>
<p>I think I will go back and look at some of the posts on the law school admissions process. You can never be too prepared, right?</p>
<p>BTW, where did your daughter end up attending school? </p>
<p>Thanks for your kind words and information. I really appreciate it! ~berurah</p>
<p>mstee,</p>
<p>Thanks for the congrats! It's never too late for those! ~berurah</p>
<p>Berurah:
...and belated congratulations from us in Chicago as well. Don't fret the nose, it will probably make him quirkily attractive - just look at Owen Wilson :)</p>
<p>optimizerdad,</p>
<p>Thanks for the congratulations! About the nose, my son is actually beginning to look on the bright side--he's never liked his nose. He always thought it was too big. Maybe now the insurance company will approve the nose job he always dreamed of?? <em>lol</em> ~berurah</p>
<p>berurah,</p>
<p>Your S sounds like a gem! Science interests and a great debator too! I'm sure he'll have many fine choices to choose from come April 1. You must have lively dinner conversations! My baby bro won a national debate title with his college team years ago, and I never win arguments with him. I teach high school math and AP Statistics, and have a great unit on epidemiology and the CDC. Did your S ever hear about the Young Epidemiology Scholars Program (<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/yes/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegeboard.com/yes/index.html</a>)? The deadline has passed for this year, but if your younger children have the same bug...</p>
<p>In an earlier post, I recall your concern that your S might prefer a LAC type environment with more contact with profs. Michigan has a small program called the Residential College within the LAS college (<a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/yes/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.collegeboard.com/yes/index.html</a>) which your S might want to investigate due to its research opportunities. Others have also mentioned the Honors Program. The Michigan Med Center is one of the top teaching hospitals in the country. And their student clinic and emergency room provided great service when my S happened to need them.
<a href="http://www.rc.lsa.umich.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://www.rc.lsa.umich.edu/</a>. Glad to hear your S's nose is on the mend. Mine broke his in 4th grade (baseball).</p>
<p>Wow, I sound like a UMich recruiter, which is not my intent. So please take my responses with a grain of salt. Nothing is ever perfect. My enthusiasm spilleth over from my S's exceptional experiences there (academic as well as sports rah-rah). Heck, I wanted to attend when I went to parent orientation.</p>
<p>I'm equally nutty about my D's choice of school. She knew early on that she would not be following in the family footsteps of choosing large Unis with big-time sports always on TV. She wanted the LAC experience and found her match at Carleton (whose colors are also Maize & Blue, but whose football team only wins one game each year). She says she'd love to go to UM for grad school (she's my science/math kid).</p>
<p>Congrats again to your S. More congrats will follow down the road, I'm sure.</p>
<p>Maize&Blue,</p>
<p>Thanks for the kind words about my son. He is a rather unique student in that he is so evenly split in his abilities AND interests. I so hope that you are right in that he will have many choices come Aprilas happy and excited as he is over this UMich acceptance, I can only imagine his enthusiasm by then should any of the others come through! </p>
<p>We have EXCEEDINGLY lively dinner conversations (and also at many other times of the day and evening! <em>lol</em>). Truthfully, the best thing that ever happened to our family was his entrance into the activity of debate. At least that gave him something on which to constructively focus his very argumentative side! He is logically driven to an extreme, and he is SO persistent and unyielding sometimes that it can be frustrating. By the same token he is extremely intelligent and interesting, and he regularly comes home with new, fascinating subjects to run by us. Just last week, he came in and asked me if I knew some fact about homologous viruses?! I told him Id have to count on HIM for that one!</p>
<p>My son actually wrote off to the CDC when he was nine years old (at the end of third grade). At the time, he asked for packets on biosafety Level 4 viruses (such as Ebola) and the workings of the CDC itself. He studied those all of that summer, and we still have the packets to this day. We did hear about the Young Epidemiology Scholars Program, but not until this past fall when, by virtue of all of the work he had ahead of him with college apps., it was too late. He was also taking a 3x/week college calculus course, running Cross Country, and debating. So, that left little time for extras, though he was quite excited at the prospect. I have to say that I am so jealous that you offer the unit on epidemiology and the CDC in your own school my son would have LOVED that more than anything!!</p>
<p>You have mentioned some very interesting aspects of UMich that we will definitely want to look into the Residential College and the Honors Program. I know that he would be extremely interested in being involved in original research in any capacity that he could.</p>
<p>I am so glad that your daughter found such a perfect niche in Carleton. Like your kids, mine are very different. After all that weve been though with my son and the intense, complex application process of the elite schools, I know that my next college-bound kid, my oldest daughter, will want and need an entirely different experience. She has absolutely NO desire to go out of state (she is very much a homebody and very, very close with the whole family), so I know that she will end up here in our state, which will make our application process a piece of cake compared to my sons. But then my third one will come up with entirely new goals and desires, Im sure .<em>sigh</em> </p>
<p>For the record, you sound like an amazing father and a fabulous teacher. I wish my son could have had the benefit of being under your tutelage in high school! Keep up the great work~Im sure you are greatly appreciated where you are.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the time you have taken to answer my questions and to provide the links above. I so appreciate all that you have done.</p>
<p>Respectfully, ~berurah</p>
<p>Hi Berurah...sorry I didn't get back sooner about the honors program (we are on vacation!) My son received an invite into the honors program about 1-2 weeks after his Michigan acceptance. You can also request admission, I believe. He is also a big sports fan and would love that aspect of UM for sure. On our visit, he seemed to just fit in so easily there--25,000 like-minded kids! His preference is for a mid-size (6-12,000 ) school with that type of rah-rah atmosphere--- but with the competition out there I don't know if he'll be accepted--</p>
<p>Bridie,</p>
<p>I hope you are having a great time on vacation! Thanks for getting back to me about the Honors Program. Well, we got the acceptance letter on Thursday, so I'll keep my eye out in the next 1.5 weeks or so for an invitation to the Honors Program. I know that my son would be perfectly qualified for it. I may even give the admissions office a call to get some info. on it. That's great that your son felt like he fit right in when he visited. I completely understand concerns about the size of the school, but it sounds like he has a wonderful option in Michigan. I hope your son has many choices to make when decisions come rolling in come April! ~berurah</p>
<p>Interesting to note: my son was admitted to UMich...and his admission indicated that he would be going into a program for extra enrichment, which we all assumed was because his GPA was slightly lower than their norm. Recently, Mich has contacted his school GC and indicated that he has been admitted to the honors program (this is aside from the fact that he has withdrawn becuase of an ED acceptance ot another school). Now I'm really confused.</p>
<p>I agree with others about the UMich Law School - very fine reputation!! Again, congrats to you both!</p>
<p>Tell your son he will get his football tickets together with others on his dorm floor. The tickets to watch out for are the hockey tickets. Yost is not very big (6,500+) and the students are absolutely rabid about hockey! Definitely a tough ticket. Basketball tickets are no big deal, as neither is the basketball team.</p>
<p>This talk about the size of the school puzzles me. You are going to be there 4 years. Cities the size of San Francisco are small after 4 years.</p>
<p>Something that might seem the right size now may seem miniscule in 4 years.</p>
<p>I can't believe Michigan or Ann Arbor will feel large by the end of 4 years.</p>
<p>momsdream,</p>
<p>So, I take it the Honors Program WAS the extra enrichment program to which they were referring?? If so, it sounds like he received this information with the actual letter of admission...Hmmmmmmmm. At any rate, I am so proud of and happy for your son for his admission to his ED school. That is fabulous!</p>
<p>UMDAD, </p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up on the tickets! I never realized that the hockey was that popular. Of course I realized the football tickets were in huge demand...:) My son is actually a big basketball fan. I'm sure he would want to see some of those games as well--at least the tickets won't be quite as hard to come by!</p>
<p>dstark,</p>
<p>By the standards of a university, U.of M. IS quite large. I think that some less outgoing students might feel a bit overlooked, like just another face in a crowd. This would not be a particular concern for my own son, especially given that the freshman class sizes don't seem to be overly large. I did my masters at the University of Texas, another very large school. I have also lived mostly in large, metropolitan areas. Size is not an issue to me. But, to some, it may be a drawback. I think you are right, though, in that what may seem large now may not after 4 years of familiarization. </p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>Berurah, I'm late in replying here. No, the earlier admission letters referenced a completely separate program for extra enrichment. That was not the honors program. It was for students who were viewed as in need of extra academic support.</p>
<p>Yesterday he receievd the actual letter advising him of the admission to the Honors Program (he had only heard of it last week from his guidance counselor, who got a call from UMich). This is a much different program than that described in the earlier correspondence. "After reviewing your file, we think that you are well suited to Honors' challenging academic program and vigorous intellectual community". </p>
<p>It's all very confusing. How does one student get admitted to both an enrichment program for at risk students AND the honors program? </p>
<p>Anyway, we've finally been directed to withdraw via a special link on the website. </p>
<p>Is the honors invitation reserved as an incentive to matriculate? If so, are the invited students REALLY honors level achievers? Or, was a more careful evaluation of his transcript done, giving more careful consideration to his school's profile? </p>
<p>From everything he is receiving, it "feels" like he is in two separate pipelines at Mich. </p>
<p>Anyway, we'll see if it stops now that he has used the website withdraw method, as opposed to the letter and follow-up emails he has previously sent. </p>
<p>I really wish I knew what was going on as I find it pretty interesting.</p>
<p>Berurah, my D just got an acceptance to UM yesterday, and while I was like 'Yay' she was more like 'meh', but I think that's because it did not automatically include the Honors invitation. Anyway, she wrote back asking for Honors.
Still, I am looking at the out-of-state cost, $37,000........wow!</p>
<p>Yeah, Chocoholic, congrats to D despite the "meh". And the $37K is a big pow. They are not generous at all with out of state aid either.My neighbor's D went to CMU though she would have preferred Michigan, the same with S's friend with Notre Dame. They did not get merit money and Michigan, alone of the three mentioned schools did not come near to meeting the gap between EFC and cost.That is the drawback to applying to another state's college; getting money is not easy as they are obliged to take care of their own first.</p>
<p>Sorry it took me while to get back to post this...I was busy breathing into a brown paper bag after reading choc's post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>chocoholic--first of all, CONGRATULATIONS to your daughter on her Michigan acceptance!! She may not be overly excited, but I am excited for her! <em>lol</em> Ummmm...I didn't realize the tuition was THAT high? Does that figure include room and board a such?? Yikes! My son's GC claims that our state has some sort of partial reciprocity for tuition purposes (since we are in the midwest also). Does this ring a bell with anyone? If so, post please!!</p>
<p>momsdream--I am completely confused as to what happened with your son! Those two programs would seem to be diametrically opposite!? I realize that your son will be going elsewhere, but I'd sure be curious as to why he was given info. on both of those special programs....</p>
<p>jamimom--Do you know what it takes to get merit money at Michigan? My son was so hoping to be considered for it, but I am losing hope as I see these posts about how difficult it is to get out-of-state aid. Do you know anything about a tuition reciprocity agreement between Michigan and certain other midwest states?? Thanks!</p>
<p>~berurah</p>