There are usually events on Friday, like College & school receptions, presentations from various student services, art & museum exhibits and they even had an acapella group perform Friday evening D’s freshman year, IIRC.
IMHO, it’s skippable. We’ll be there Thursday evening, but Friday-Saturday, we’ll probably hang out with D, buy some gear at the MDen, eat food and drink coffee, meet (some) and take the roommates out for lunch/dinner, run/workout, etc. Rinse and repeat.
I wouldn’t/shouldn’t miss the Michigan Band’s Drumline:
“Approximately two hours before the kickoff of a Michigan home game, crowds gather outside of Revelli Hall, the home of the Michigan Marching Band, to witness another great Michigan tradition: the Drumline Stepshow (performance typically begins ninety minutes prior to kickoff). From the steps of the hall, the drumline performs pieces of their repertoire for the cheering crowd before marching to Michigan Stadium.”
It’s a pretty cool show before the game.
I concur… This is just awesome and fun…
Where I come from (SF Bay Area), you don’t get this level/type of entertainment from a college band. I’m not an alum, but I live nearby, and my “model” of a college band is the Stanford Band and its mascot The Tree. 
i almost fail to recognize you as u no longer has umich logo as profile pic! haha
I may flip back and forth. I gotta rep both kids here. 
For move-in or parents weekend:
My only significant disagreement is with Zingermans (best deli?, must be the only one) and Soul Cycle (best workout class puh-leeze). 
I got a bill too! I didn’t look but am pretty sure it’s a “bill” showing I have a $300 credit for my deposit since I happened to be looking at my account yesterday so can’t imagine it’s anything otherwise.
I agree with you about Zingermans. I have never understood why people rant and rave over it. Having a husband from NYC and many deli’s here, I can easily take a pass on Zingerman’s and never have the need to walk in again.
@sushiritto: Nice plug for the MMB! The step show is awesome. My son has been on the drum line for 3 years, and we are hoping for a real year again this fall.
After the step show, stick around for the choreographed band exit from Revelli Hall and procession to the stadium!
Also be aware that costs go up when a student achieves Junior status, which is determined by credit hours accrued. This can come on rather quickly if a student comes in with a lot of AP credits. The rates go up at 55 credit hours and AP credits count towards that total.
My son didn’t take credit for one of the AP courses he took to delay the cost increase by a semester. The course didn’t provide him anything towards his degree except the credit hours so he felt it was worthwhile to forego the AP credits.
I saw that and asked someone about why they do that up thread. Have never seen this before. The answers were sort of ridiculous. Bottom line is because they can and no other reason.
Unfortunately it is likely we may be paying that higher rate after freshman year. You make a good point about paying attention to being close and waiting to claim a credit or not. I think we figured out my son can have at most 37 hours. More likely he will have 32 he can claim. After talking to someone from hs today also majoring in CS and was in two of his CS classes I think he’s going to claim those credits for AP CS when he might normally not have. So that allows him to start getting right into his major courses. Now that he has a sense of things in a few weeks he can start mapping stuff out.
Also for anyone with a kid in Engineering do you know if you can take Engr 100 and 101/151 in the same semester if you choose (if he decides not to take his AP credit)? This is something else we thought of doing although again I think he’s leaning toward skipping the 101 class due to a lot of redundancy and taking an EECS course right away first semester with an intellectual breadth and start knocking those fun courses out.
Talk to an advisor instead of planning his classes for him. You might not be able to do what you think you can do. Don’t assume or you might be disappointed. My son’s second semester sophomore year he was a junior status wise. There was slight advantage in that. If he didn’t double minor he could of graduated last semester but wanted to stay… Even during a pandemic They still have to follow the curriculum to senior year. His credits might open up minors or electives. Might open up ability to Coop or internship (both are great for CS and paid). Your following a sequence. Just a suggestion. Some of the courses can go deep quick and it’s good to have the Michigans foundation first which might be very different then the foundation he currently has. So. Talk to an advisor. He might need to get an exception to pass over a sequence class.
Zingsrmans is more of an experience and legacy then anything else. There are great delis in Michigan. They just aren’t in Ann Arbor. That and like Blimpy Burgers are institutions like Angelo’s as they suggested (it’s great). But the long line at Zingermans tells me it’s still the experience. Been that way when my wife was there in the early 80s so… They must be doing something right.
@srparent15 My son ended up dropping his AP Stats credit as it really didn’t help him knock off any requirements and just dropping that one course’s AP credit also pushed the tuition hike to Sophomore year.
I haven’t heard of anyone either skipping one of the Eng100/Eng101 classes, nor taking them the same semester. Not to say it doesn’t happen. I have heard about people taking them in reverse order though, that is 101 first and then 100.
I’m with @Knowsstuff , getting with the advisers is the best way to go. Although like you, my son and I spent a good amount of time mapping out possible courses before he met with his advisors.
As an engineer myself I was interested in how the current curriculum unfolds. Once he had advisors I left all those decisions to them. After all, there was no guarantee he would even finish in engineering once he started and I didn’t want to be the one driving his choices that way just because it would have been the decision I would have made for myself!
Definitely about the experience! That said, they do have a fabulous array of cheeses and charcuterie. H loves that they give samples, even of their expensive iberico.
Well mine took eecs 183 instead of Matlab. His was c++/python based. He’s not in CS but industrial. Still remember he telling me about 1 problem that took him and a CS kid 2 days over 14 hours to solve this 1 problem. They were the first ones with the correct answer… Lol 
… It was to prove a point by the professors. The rest of the problems were normal struggle problems.
Having a lot of early credits can ease up the schedule though. My son took 18 credits first 2 semesters with 2 sciences and labs together. Plus working and being involved in school. It’s hard but somehow they do it. But he loves his minors. Used AP for elective credits. I am with you also in high school I pushed to excel. All hands off in college. As my son excelled he saw very capable students retake classes and drop out of engineering altogether. Get a semester under your belt so you can see what they expect. It’s different. My son never got a C in his life and it happened at Michigan and he told me that was the “good” grade for that class. Many retook the class not getting the “good” grade. Heh, as you know, engineering is challenging.
That is another good reason to let the student pick the courses. There are lots of similar options and they should pick the ones that interest them. There is no one correct path. I use Matlab every day in my job right now, but there are thousands of engineers that work in the same company who probably don’t even know we have the tool. It really depends both on the type of work one is doing at the time and personal preferences.
My son told me recently he was shocked when he found out some of the other students in his same major didn’t use Matlab at all, let alone as extensively as he does. They were still getting along just fine without it. Everyone needs to find what works for them.
Yeah he finally had a chance to talk to someone from our high school in the same track at UM which helped since he had the same course work. Since he has the AP CS credit he doesn’t have to take Engr 101/151. It’s basically the same course as our high school teaches so the kid told him to just skip it, since once you have that you can move on to the other EECS courses since that’s a prerequisite for them. Unfortunately their Data Structures class they also took won’t count be accepted for the dual credit unless they go through the hassle of petitioning which the kid said not worth it and that one my son had already decided he wanted to take over. My older son who is in the same area and has worked for 5 years has said that’s one of the most important foundational courses that employers want to make sure you have a good understanding so he’s definitely retaking that!
He’s not trying to rush through or graduate early but wants to take classes of interest to him and/or double major. He can make a course plan that he wants and there is a sample course plan for his major on the Michigan website which is what we’re following. What he has no interest in however, is in taking 2 intellectual breadth courses first semester along with calc 3 and engr 100 just because he has the AP credit in the other classes on the freshman course planner. He also already isn’t thrilled he has to retake Calc 3. So it would be nice if he could take something he’s interested in as part of his major instead of my paying 27k for him to retake courses he’s already taken which is sort of ridiculous never mind how redundant it is.
If he hadn’t talked to this other kid I would be more concerned but things are falling into place making it a little clearer.
Agree that Zingermans isn’t the best. Nice specialty shop but sandwiches are average. Try Maize and Blue deli for better food in my opinion.