It’s always TBD.
https://housing.umich.edu/themes/substance-free-living/
Martha Cook, Helen Newberry and Betsy Barbour kinda have the reputation, but they’re all female dorms, which doesn’t help you. Sorry.
Thanks. Guess I have to make sure he doesn’t click that and just puts no smoking. Goal is East, West or South Quad so definitely don’t want to list any preference that gives them any reason to stick him on North Campus. He’s at least done enough research to learn where he does and doesn’t want to live if he can get it.
Someone just told me that Alice Lloyd has been redone and that’s desirable but is Hill more desirable than Central so I can share with him?
Take it for what this is, one person’s opinion. BTW, Lloyd was refurbished a few years ago. Before D18 arrived on campus.
The Hill is an awesome location, but for Markley, which is further away from campus and the oldest dorm on campus, due for replacement. Couzens, Lloyd and MoJo would be excellent choices too. He would have about a 10-minute walk over the bridge (Washtenaw Avenue) to Central Campus.
What does The Hill have to offer:
- Yes, you guessed it, first up is the 5-minute walk to the CCRB (Central Campus Rec Bldg.) for his daily workouts.
- Tennis courts at his doorstep.
- Palmer Field at his doorstep.
- MoJo Dining Hall, which is just as good as anything on Central Campus, and it’s the biggest dining facility, IIRC.
I’d agree that East, West and South Quads would probably be more desirable (closer to the stadium, UGLI, Yost, Crisler, Greek life, Student Union, etc.) than The Hill. But honestly, it’s “splitting hairs” (but for Markley).
In Markley’s defense, it’s considered the “social dorm.”
Just to add. The hill is closer to the Arb which is a great place to study or just kinda get away. My wife loved being in MOJO but that was early 80s… Pretty much anywhere on campus is 10 minute walk to the diag where his classes will be mostly anyway.
BTW - my son just walked from North Campus to the State theater areas on central and that was only like 10-12 minutes…
He must run 5-minute miles then. 
I was really surprised. Him and his girlfriend rented an Arbnb and it was quicker then I thought it would be.
anyone know what mich’s acceptance rate was this year?
No. That likely won’t be officially known until this Summer or Fall. They’ll have a press release, update their student profile page and publish their 2021-2022 Common Data Set.
https://admissions.umich.edu/apply/first-year-applicants/student-profile
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Helpful, thanks. Will be in a humanities in LSA, doing the Honors option (sounds like the most important factor of that program may be for the freshman South Quad dorm access?), so may be different classes to keep an eye on.
Now, thanks to your other advice, looking at hotels for drop-off and parents’ weekend. Of course, all the central ones are booked. 
Which outer area is the better location? West, South, North? Does it even matter when you have to get in a car regardless?
My view from my armchair.
Honors students get their own lounge, their own advisors, some/a few classes are reserved for honors students only, but none of it IMO is really that impactful in my view. Honors is really just “busy work,” when there’s already a boatload of work to do. My D is slammed with work w/o honors. To me, it’s extra stuff to do that, down the line, employers don’t really care about.
Also, there are also all sorts of Honors awards based on GPA that have nothing to do with “Honors,” so the whole “honors” thing confuses me.
Bottom line: Yep, South Quad housing via “Honors” is the really the only thing that truly matters, but West and East Quads are equal IMO, if you can actually get them w/o doing “Honors.”
For me, I like the West location, but North and South are just as good. The hotels down by Briarwood Mall are 3 miles away. The Hampton Inn West is about 2 miles away from campus. And in between those two miles there’s the YMCA and S. Main St. area of cafes and restaurants. My D has always been on the West side too.
For Parents Weekend, I have a cheaper reservation down by the Mall and a REALLY expensive reservation close to Central Campus. I’m leaning towards keeping the REALLY expensive one, because it’s likely our final Parents Weekend in A2. And the location is superb.
We have never rented a car. We’ve always used the Flyer, bus, walk, Uber/Lyft, hotel shuttle, etc. As for carrying the luggage and other stuff, they call me “The Sherpa.”
Hello everyone - DS21 is still going back and forth between UM (CS), UVA (CS), and UIUC (Undeclared Engineering, probably end up selecting CE) and one of things we noticed was that most courses at UM were 4 credit hours vs 3 at other schools. So for a typical 15-18 hour load you can only do 4 courses at UM vs 5 or 6 at the other two schools which translates into room for 8+ courses over the 4 years. Are the courses at UM that much more intensive/cover more ground relative to UVA and UIUC? Appreciate any insights. We are in-state for UVA.
@srparent15 - Congratulations on your son selecting UM over UVA! Would love your thoughts on what factors made him select UM (other than cost, which I realize is probably a wash for you guys with both schools being out of state. We have that variable to include). Can’t wait for DS to pick a school and jump into the next round of madness - dorms and meal plans!
Thanks!
I don’t think I can answer your question, but I do know there’s some difference between obtaining CS degree in LSA versus CoE. The core CS requirements are similar/exact, but obtaining a CS degree in LSA will allow you to take more LSA courses outside of the core CS requirements, I believe. And there’s many LSA courses that are 3 units.
Also, a CS degree from CoE requires 128 units versus 120 units in LSA.
Lastly, UMich encourages double majors and minors. My D has two minors.
So my son took 18 credits his first 2 semesters freshman year while working 10 - 15 hours a week and played flag football on Sundays at 10:30 pm… Plus starting a tech club. Yes, UIUC gives like the most value for electives but they don’t really buy you much. Get out of a few electives and ability to minor. My son had few AP credits but still ended up double minor with his industrial engineering major. Trust me it’s plenty.
Be careful of going to undecided to Computer engineering. It’s not a clean transition. Talk to them this week to clarify. We are from Chicago and still we are at Michigan.
Michigan and UIUC are tough schools. No doubt about it. I would recommend not over doing it the first semester. It’s not high school. If that goes as expected then pile it on. Most likely the extra credit won’t enable your child to graduate early either due to the progression they go through… UIUC gave in about 4 years ago due to parent pressure about the APs… BTW.
Does anyone know how to get in contact with College Advisors? Is it based on the area I’m in? I dont know what they do really haha.
Just call admissions or email them. Your actually one might not be assigned yet but they should still be able to answer your questions.
His interests lie in the building “things” side of robotics, so likely MechEng or EE. Not CS.
Did you get in?
This is the huge benefit of Michigan engineering. He is not locked into any one major. He can move around. Plus take this class https://advising.engin.umich.edu/engr-100/
He can explore different areas of interest. Hint : not a blow off class. Many make that mistake. Just do the work and he should do fine.
@Knowsstuff @sushiritto - Thanks for your responses!
My son lived in Markley for a summer program in 2013. It was I think I mentioned this previously a dump. I would not want this son to live there. I know they are finally tearing it down which is long past overdue especially considering my mother who is 80 told me that it was being built when she was at Michigan for the one semester she attended as a freshman in the 50’s. So yeah I think it’s long overdue!
Of course, he is a huge tennis player so having courts outside his door would be nice, but for him that’s not going to make it or break it. He needs to have a reason to move his tush and get over to the courts.
It’s too bad that the honors program there is more work as opposed to some of the extras that other schools give. My daughter in BHP at Texas has so many perks and they don’t have extra work or requirements. It sounds like some schools (not saying here since my son doesn’t have the option of Honors for his program so I’m not familiar) but that it’s not that desirable for some students because it’s not always viewed as a reward. Probably not coming out right but honors shouldn’t always mean extra work per se. Smaller classes, better advising, different classes, etc.
@qqsubs I think the difference in the engineering hours at Michigan vs other schools (it’s similar at Cornell being 4 with my daughter) is that many of those courses have extra discussions whereas 3 hour ones don’t. Although last year she had one 3 hour that did and she never could figure out why it was only a 3 hour since it met the exact same amount of time per week and discussion as every 4 hour one she had. I view this as a big plus over 3 hour engineering courses. Never thought I would say that but it matters. Engineering at UM requires more hours to graduate than LSA so if you don’t have AP coming in that probably means you need to take a few extra hours somewhere else or summer school but it is very manageable. 16 hours (4 classes) for an Engineering student is plenty. There will probably even be some 2 hour dinky ones that can be matched with a 3 hour in LSA requirement.
As for the difference between UVA and UM one thing my son REALLY liked at UVA was that he would never have to take an English class again and only need something like 5 classes outside of Engineering period and that was it. I was also sort of shocked about that. Cost was not a factor so you’re correct there. I was basically paying the same as an Ivy League whether he was going to the Ivy or not and resolved that issue once I knew he wasn’t going to Purdue. For awhile I really thought he was leaning to UVA. Beautiful campus, Engineering close together buildings nearby one another, big internship fair, nice sports, etc, we did get stuck at the airport awhile but that didn’t seem to affect him. But when he got into UM the day after we returned from UVA, something changed and later I heard him talking to friends that if he didn’t get into the ED school he was probably committing to UM. I think he had started to research it more and I think he realized their CS program was far superior to UVA that regardless of the fact that 20 kids were coming to UM from our school, only him and 1 other would be coming for Engineering and he had to take that out of the equation. Michigan Engineering is ranked 5 overall, Michigan CS is ranked 11 overall, the schools ranked 5-10 are all ranked 5th (including UIUC) so basically UM is essentially one spot below or indistinguishable for the most part 3 schools are tied for 2nd. Bottom line is if you’re at the top for CS there isn’t much difference. Michigan’s alumni network is worldwide. If he wants to work in NY he will be able to, Silicon, LA, Austin, etc no problem. Weather is not a factor for him, sports was a bonus. Deep faculty is also huge. I looked at that more than he did and it was not something that blew me away at UVA. They academic calendar doesn’t thrill me as I had to completely change our family winter vacation plans but I think my kids are now much happier with the tradeoff, I have a happy husband as well so maybe it winds up being a bigger winner and in a year my pocket book will know for sure.
As for UIUC, Undeclared Engineering is iffy that’s the one big risk for you there. With UM you’re already in guaranteed for Engineering and you don’t need to declare the major right away so your son can pick whatever he wants. That’s a huge plus. Illinois has limits in majors and a lot of people vying for the same majors and their courses for those majors are not easy some are big weedouts. Having the AP credit for UIUC will be a plus.
We keep learning new things everyday so feel free to pm me. We live in Illinois and UIUC is not so kind to their own residents which is a problem in that they lose their top students to other states because they want OOS or international money for those program and won’t accept their own. Our valedictorian didn’t get in for CS and my son who if not salutatorian is close behind was only offered pre-engineering which is a slap in the face. They then had the nerve to make him a James Honors Scholar which was an Honor bestowed on their top applicants. Unreal. My oldest was supposed to go there for CS and he was the one who didn’t go to college and took a job out in SF instead. The other 3 have all left or will be leaving for college. Not a good look that we have one of the greatest population losses of any state and they can’t figure out why. This is probably part of it.
Good luck wherever he does end up!