I don’t know where people are coming up with the idea that one of the purposes of college is to have fun. If you want fun, go to DIsneyland or trek around the world for a year.
My main concern is the assumption that you’ll get into Michigan for grad school.
Wellll… it appears that Dearborn does have a co-op program. https://umdearborn.edu/cecs/undergraduate-programs/co-op-education
Maybe the best-fit path for you would be to go to Dearborn, but rather than rushing through your degree in one year, get on the co-op path and graduate in two years, with a year of paid work experience already under your belt. (Or whatever timeline actually works when you get down to the details of it.)
My sense is that this could be the best-of-both-worlds path for you. If you try to finish in one year, you’ll be applying to grad schools during your first semester at college and won’t have much of an academic record yet at college to support your application. If you stretch things a little with co-op, you’ll spend significant time working rather than in the classroom - which is what you want - but you’ll be able to do grad school apps in the fall of your second year, when you’ve had more of a chance to prove yourself. And you’re likely to get career opportunities through your co-ops that would have been harder to access as a 19 y/o with an academic degree alone.
JMHO. If you’re not into the Ann Arbor thing, let somebody who would give their right arm to go there have the scholarship money! You obviously know what you want and aren’t interested in a traditional college experience, but just don’t rush through so fast at Dearborn that you miss out on the boost that co-op might have given you.
I would definitely be doing interships and co-ops (maybe with Ford) when I’m at um Dearborn is to gain work experience. A lot of you are saying getting into grad school at Ann Arbor is hard. How hard are we talking?
Go to the following page and select “Computer Science and Engineering” for admission statistics to Michigan’s CS and Engineering Graduate program.
https://secure.rackham.umich.edu/academic_information/program_statistics/masters/
Basically, it says last year 1335 people applied for 39 positions.
And all 1335 had six or seven semesters of college grades, a variety of foundational and advanced classes, professional experiences, relevant ECs with leadership (at the college level).
Your odds of getting into UMich for a master’s with a degree you got in one year are between very low and nil.
Sure, they want a 3.75+, but they want everything else.
You’re likely to need two years at Dearborn anyway, as you’d need to apply to grad school in the Fall of your second year (perhaps during a co-op term). You won’t be able to apply to grad school Fall of your first year since you won’t have grades yet and most universities require 2 years to grant a degree.
So your real choice is 2 years at Dearborn plus a shot at perhaps getting into UMich, or UMich for free now.
You should check whether if you go to UMich and complete enough credits, you’d be able to take master’s level classes in your last year.
All in all, I would be doing 5 semesters at U of M dearborn which would be Summer 2019, Fall 2019, Winter 2020, Summer 2020, and Fall 2020 and I will have enough credits to graduate with my bachelors. Also Summer 2019 is right after I graduate High School.
Oh and btw some of you may be confused about the data that Ann Arbor shows for the graduate program. If you look into the statistics even deeper it says that they’ve admitted 119 students into the doctoral program from 775 applications and only 47 enrolled. You might be calculating acceptance rate as 47 got admitted out of 775 but it is actually 119/775 resulting in a 15% acceptance rate. They also say that PhD applicants can get into the Masters program if rejected from the doctoral program which is another good thing to keep in mind.