<p>My daughter has been accepted to and is considering all four. We live in the Detroit area. Undecided major. Maybe Pharmacy? Most likely something math/science related. Will want to explore possibilities in first year or two. Personality - bright girl, somewhat shy, works very hard, not terribly assertive.</p>
<p>Univ of Michigan - In Ann Arbor, one hour away. Highest ranked of the schools. Largest of the schools. Waiting to hear if she will be accepted into the Honors Program (already accepted into the honors programs at the other 3). Could apply to Pharmacy school at end of sophomore year if she wants to and has the grades & pre-reqs.</p>
<p>Univ of Pittsburgh - In Pittsburgh, about 5 hours away. More eastern than midwest. Applied pre-pharmacy, and was accepted into the 6 year PharmD program if grades are maintained and pre-req's are taken. Nice deal if she's pretty sure about Pharmacy...don't know if she is, don't know whether she knows if she is!</p>
<p>Loyola Chicago - In Chicago, also about 5 hours away, a midwest town. Jesuit school. Strong programs in the sciences. No pharmacy school. </p>
<p>DePaul - Also in Chicago, Lincoln Park neighborhood, which is very nice. Catholic (Vincentian). She loves the campus and the location. Highly ranked school (Princeton Review), but probably lowest ranked of the 4 she is looking at. Seems to me it may be the weakest in the sciences. No pharmacy school.</p>
<p>Any comments, thoughts, suggestions etc. would be very much appreciated!</p>
<p>Pitt's a pretty good school, Loyola and DePaul not bad but in a great city. Hard to see why you'd pass up Michigan in-state. It's easily the class of this bunch and in-state tuition is hard to beat on the financial side, unless one or more of these schools is prepared to pony up heavy financial aid dollars.</p>
<p>Can't argue with Michigan's reputation. Money is not a big issue, as she has had some very nice scholarship offers. So far it is the one school she does not have a very good feel for yet, although she has visited a couple of times. She will visit again on admitted students day, and spend some of that day with her cousin, who is a freshman there.</p>
<p>She is a little concerned about the size. Might not be so bad if she gets in the Honors college.</p>
<p>I have many friends in the honors college, many of whom say that it feels like a BS incentive to lure kids away from going to higher ranked schools. Obviously there are benefits (housing, professors as discussion leaders, etc). I'm not in honors, so I can't speak from experience, but I don't think it necessarily makes the school feel smaller.</p>
<p>I will, however, say that Ann Arbor, at least compared to Chicago, makes the school feel smaller. Yeah, there are 40,000 students there, but I feel like the campus is really centralized, easily to navigate, safe, and friendly. It's a "homey" feel, much less intimidating than a city. I came from a very small high school and never really felt that I had to adjust much to the size. To each his own I suppose.</p>
<p>I don't think Michigan honors or not should be the deciding factor. It's really not a big deal being in honors or not. At those other schools, it might give you a great advantage.</p>
<p>DePaul is a great city experience, not as great a school. Some of their programs are outstanding, but math and science are not among them. The students from our HS who go there are solid B averages, with ACTs in the mid 20's. Loyola is a bit higher.</p>
<p>University of Michigan is tops in so many ways. I don't see the comparison to the others, especially when it comes to Pharm School.</p>
<p>Moxy, Pitt isn't that small. It has 18,000 undergrads compared to Michigan's 26,000. Pitt also has 10,000 graduate students compared to Michigan's 15,000 graduate students. Altogether, Pitt has 28,000 students, Michigan has 41,000 students. In other words, Pitt is Big and Michigan is very Big. That's the only distinction. </p>
<p>One thing to consider is campus size. At 130 acres, Pitt's campus is tiny. We're talking 200 students per acre. That is extremely dense. At 3,200 acres, Michigan's campus is spread out and evenly populated. North campus has 800 acres of space for 10,000 students, mainly Engineering, Music, Dance, Art and Architecture. So the remaining 30,000 students occupy 2,000+ acres of land. That's roughly 15 students per acre. There is a significant difference in feel between 15 students per acre and 200 students per acre. I always say that given Michigan's well compartmentalized campus, huge faculty and resources, the University feels much smaller than it really is.</p>
<p>But really, I think passing up UMich in-state would be stupid, especially compared to these schools. (This coming from a student who has Pitt as one of their top choices)</p>
<p>Unless your daughter really does not like UM, I have to say as well that being in-state for UM and especially for pharmacy makes this a simple decision - UM by far. Pitt would be 2nd choice.</p>
<p>(By the way, my D1 is in the pharmacy school at Pitt. She also was accepted into the UM program, but the OOS costs were prohibitive. Even the dean of admissions at the UM pharm school said that we should be “good stewards of our money” in making the decision when I spoke to her.)</p>