Spell check. I am more interested in hearing about peoples own experiences. Also concerned about racism on campus.
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From personal experience: campus has been significantly diverse for decades. Relatively low racism compared to other places.
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Nice to hear this. Maybe we need to visit again. 
I just wanted to hear if people who have studied there or have students there have felt that it is a diverse environment.
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Just want to validate your impression, @Unimom13 and I think it would be good to hear from current students as well. You want your child to feel comfortable in the community. We were at Campus Day on Friday and I noticed a lack of diversity as well. I felt there was a lot of women represented, some ethnicities, but not a lot of color.
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How was Campus Day?
Worthwhile ?
Trying to figure out when we should go
I want to apologize for occasionally coming into this thread to complain about admissions timing. It is primarily a way to release some of the stress on our family that is created by this process, and occasionally done right after our D expresses anger or shows angst about feeling as if she doesn’t have any control of the process. We raised her in a very transparent way. We always shared timelines and expectations, for good things and bad. While I understand that maybe it is a good thing that she’s dealing with a situation or two that is not only unfair to the masses but also unclear, it still hurts as a parent to see a child impacted (no matter how small) by something that could have easily been avoided.
So I’ve harped on something that cannot be changed in the moment. Yes, I hope they change in the future- and suspect they will, since they’re likely aware of the sentiment. But while this is certainly a forum for large form discussion, this topic has been beaten to death. It is what it is, and the only thing remaining is for UM to release their decisions whenever they decide to do so. I can talk about my dissapointment that D has moved on and embraced other schools, since I think UM would be a very good fit and option for her. I can talk about the fact that transparency in the process- asking them to merely mirror peer state flagships- would smooth the process for all applicants and alleviate a ton of consistent stress. But I have done all of that, occasionally at the expense of more fruitful discussions on here.
It’s been cathartic. It definitely feels better to vent. I am in the unenviable position of having recently semi-retired and residing in a cold weather state. I’m between hobbies, the conversation at the dinner table is invariably college…and we get sucked in, lol.
So…thank you to those who have endured some of these rants. Thank you to those who have commisserated with us. Even thank you to those who have disagreed. Your love for UM is evident, you are a part of their family, and heck I love when people defend family members without regard to wrong or right. It’s what we should do.
I’m certain I’ll continue to contribute and post at a crazy rate for the next 2-3 weeks, lol, and then after that on whichever forum our D has chosen as her school. But I will try my best not to complain about the UM admissions process any longer. Points have been made, people have been frustrated, and the horse has had his funeral.
Go Blue!
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I found it extremely helpful! We had been to campus last year but they were not doing tours due to Covid, so this was a chance to get an official tour and go in a few buildings. My D met & chatted with other admitted students, which I thought was valuable. There were a lot of Admissions & other UMich people available for questions all day long. My D enjoyed talking to the student tour guides to get a feel for classes, student life, weather, etc. and it gave her a better feel for the atmosphere/fit at UMich.
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Wow. That’s a lot … 90K+ this year, 79K last year, but 65K a year for the three years prior to Covid. The landscape has definitely changed.
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If you are from out of state I would recommend it highly before committing.
Thank you for
This.
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I graduated from there, live about 5 miles away, and had a visit last week. I can’t imagine a more diverse campus. Our tour appeared to include students and families of every race I’m aware of. Multiple African American families, Asian, White, out of state, rural, Jewish, etc. If you’re predisposed to thinking this is a “white” campus, you’re mistaken.
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Agreed. For a Midwest school, UMich is plenty diverse and is generally a very welcoming place.
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Keep in mind that there’s a self-selection bias here. Admitted students days are disproportionately attended by:
- Local/Driveable students (check Michigan demographics)
- OOS people who can afford to travel and take time off work (check demographics of “people with money and free time”)
- People with a choice of multiple top-ranked schools. (op cit “people with money”)
- People who were admitted EA or early waves, by definition (correlated with all three of the above, probably)
As others have suggested, there are better sources for what the actual demographic make-up of U-M looks like.
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My D18 has not seen or experienced any racist incidents, but what I would do is Google the “Michigan Daily,” “University of Michigan” and “racism” or other terms you might find valuable and see what pops up.
During D18’s and D21’s college searches, I subscribed to the local newspapers to get a feel for the local politics, crime, etc.
Also, the CDS states that there are roughly 4,000 faculty and 18,000 graduate students and from our and D’s experience these cohorts have a lot of diversity.
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Great point!
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For what it’s worth: I had an employee who went to U-M (graduated about 8 years ago). He’s Asian American and loved his time there. He spoke of the college often, but never heard of any racist or other negative experiences from him.
I realize this is 2nd hand information but wanted to share another data point.
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You’re assuming all those cohorts would align with white families. I have to say, from my very surface impression, the families of color on our tour fit at least one of those characteristics.
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Why are you assuming anyone would assume “all” of anything would perfectly align with anything?
As with anything around demographics, there is never a perfect “everyone aligns” correlation. But there’s going to be a disproportionate tendency towards correlation with income… which is going to have a tendency towards White and Asian and away from Black and Hispanic.
Either way, the point is “you cannot reliably conclude anything about the diversity of a school based on the diversity — or lack thereof — of attendees at an Accepted Students Day.”
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All of these comments have been very helpful. It’s unfortunate that when we went our experience was not a true reflection of the student body. The campus itself was amazing and facilities were top notch. The programs have so many opportunities regardless of which direction you want to take during the time you spend there as a student. Everyone has been congratulating her on being accepted. We are out of state and before paying tuition of 70k plus if she isn’t comfortable in that environment it’s definitely something to think about. I think another visit and conversations with students will be helpful. Thanks everyone for your honesty.
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