<p>Any opinions or experiences with U-Minn Twin Cities? I've applied there (the out-of-state tuition is extremely reasonable), and I was just wondering if anybody had any input on the school.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Um...it's a very large campus geographically. I guess that's one thing. I've only visited.</p>
<p>It's large and has a huge variety of courses. It's in an urban area with a lot of interesting ethnic restaurants and night life. I went there in the 1970s because it was the only college with an affordable work-my-way-through list price that offered a Chinese major. If you've just applied there, you should have your answer in time to consider other choices too. I do think I should have applied to more colleges (I applied only to the U of MN, in my day) just to have the chance to compare offers of financial aid and compare campus atmospheres.</p>
<p>Academically, the University of Minnesota is underappreciated on this website. It has many distinguished departments and a fine faculty. Its undergraduate student body also is a plus: Most students come from Minnesota's still excellent public schools. Anyone considering attending a large public university should factor in the academic background of the in-state student body, which will set the tone. This is one of Minnesota's hidden advantages.</p>
<p>There was a time, into the 60s, when Minnesota was widely thought of as one of the troika of the Big Ten's best (i.e., mentioned in the same breath with Michigan and Wisconsin). Minnesota's national standing fell after that, not precipitously, but there was a definite and deserved decline in reputation. This during a period when many of the university's peer institutions (read, competitors) prospered. There's a lot that could be said to explain this, but it comes down mostly to the cumulative effect of several decades of trying to be simultaneously great AND all things to all people.</p>
<p>The State of Minnesota has been treating its university well in recent years (compare with Wisconsin!), investing in it and relieving it of the old expectation that it should accept any decent Minnesota high school graduate who applies. It takes awhile to restore a reputation, but Minnesota, which maintained excellence in a number of areas all through the period of "decline," is moving very nicely across the board in the right direction now.</p>
<p>I'll mention one additional advantage of Minnesota before noting some negatives: The campus, which straddles the Mississippi River, just a long walk from downtown Minneapolis, is vibrant during the day and beautiful. Of the urban university campuses I know (I guess I only know ten or twelve, but that's a reasonable number) this is my favorite: It has an elysian softness and calm despite being connected on all sides to some of the most interesting parts of a bustling metropolis.</p>
<p>Negatives? There are a few. It's still huge. For some this is a blessing, but anyone looking for the personal touch has to seek it out. The dorms are great, mostly along the river, and I've heard that an increasing percent of undergraduates are living in them, but the commuter element is still substantial. It's not surprising at a massive urban university that a lot of students would prefer to find housing in neighborhoods all around the area, but this does mean that the campus itself is a lot quieter after hours than is Wisconsin's, say, or Michigan's. And quite a lot of students commute in even from the suburbs.</p>
<p>In a related vein, there are some interesting social costs of the University of Minnesota's location in a metropolis that is home to more than half of the state's population. One of these costs is that most in-state students, whether living in a dorm or off-campus, have many friends in the area, including many who are not university students. Mainly these are high school friends and friends from part-time workplaces that might be anywhere in the metropolitan area. The in-state Minnesota kids are mostly really nice, and they think of themselves as open-minded people, but socially they often are not sophisticated. They tend to be oblivious to the impacts of sticking throughout college to their prior networks of pals. One bad impact for them: dependence on existing networks holds them back from social growth and development. And one bad impact for out-of-state students: these prior networks limit the social worlds and possibilities of newcomers. Cliques and the in-state / out-of-state cultural divide are issues on most college campuses, but I'm saying that at Minnesota the matter has slightly different dimensions owing to Minnesota's culture and to the university's location in the heart of the state's population center. I'm probably making way too much of this, it's not as if you'll make no in-state friends at Minnesota, but it is an element of being there, and worth noting.</p>
<p>If you're serious about Minnesota and it's possible to visit, do. Make it a formal, arranged visit rather than an individual ramble. This will give you a pretty good feel for the place. If you can't visit, gather as much information this way as you can.</p>
<p>"St. Paul and Minneapolis extend from the Mississippi River like the legs on a pair of trousers. Where they join is the University of Minnesota."</p>
<p>Max Shulman, Barefoot Boy with Cheek (Garden City N.Y.: Garden City Books, 1943), p. 17.</p>
<p>The campus is very urban and very integrated into the surrounding city.</p>
<p>Some people like the fact, others don't.</p>
<p>From the Minneapolis newspaper, admissions statistics for U of MN: </p>