What do you know about U of Montana?

Parents Forum
21

<p>I suspect my son would have dropped all his LACs for U Montana in an instant (fly-fishing was the draw...) but he didn't visit the school when we were looking at schools. He was in Missoula for fishing in July (starting school as freshman in August) and thought it was absolutely fabulous. It didn't help that several of the fishing guides had gone to school there and taken some environmental-related things plus a Culinary Arts degree of some sort (guides have to be great cooks). His two favorite activities - fishing and cooking/eating. Two of the guides were teaching there.</p>

<p>Once he thought about how expensive the plane ticket is, and that he really needs to be doing something in college besides fishing, and he would be there mostly in the winter, he realized, for him, it was a passing fancy. </p>

<p>Maybe he'll end up there for graduate school!</p>

22

<p>More on our U Montana-Missoula trip:
We live in VT where we have 3 to 4 feet of accumulated snow by winter's end, and it is the only thing we hate about living here, SO, we asked our hotel shuttle driver how much snow accumulates in Missoula. She said she'd been living there for 5 years and has yet to see any! She said, Yes it snows, but then the sun comes out and melts it! And that it was not unusual to have a 70 degree day in January. It is usually about 30 degrees in the winter, which is WARM to us Vermonters!</p>

<p>My daughter loves white water rafting, kayaaking, mountain climbing/hiking, etc. UM has an outdoor sports shop where you can rent rafts, kayaaks, tents, etc. and there's also a shop for repairing/sharpening your skis/boards. Also a 2 or 3 story climbing wall.</p>

<p>The student center has trees and plants growing it it, a glass ceiling, and has a food court with Pizza Hut, Baskin Robbins, Soup/salad place, wrap place, lots of other restaurants, ATM, campus bookstore and looks more like a mall than something on a campus. The dorms were fabulous, food was good and there were almost too many places to eat. There's a Country Store that has a deli and is a small supermarket and this is right on campus next to the Food Zoo (main dining hall). There were golf carts emblazoned with "Spirit Police" driving around making sure everyone was ready for the next day's Grizzly football game. I guess EVERYONE is football crazy whether you're a jock, nerd, techie, hippie, etc. The love of the team unites the campus. BTW--The welcome by admissions/faculty my daughter received was the most personal that she's received at any school she visited and this school was the largest with 11,500 undergrads!</p>

<p>I took about 150 gorgeous photos of UM that I'm happy to upload somewhere for all to see if one of you techies can tell me how/where I can post them.</p>

<p>Airfare for us is in the neighborhood of $500 RT for us, but we are in the middle of nowhere. From the east coast, you'd fly United to Chicago-Denver-Missoula.</p>

23

<p>I happen to be a U of M graduate and now live about 70 miles north of Missoula, so I'm probably somewhat biased. Western Montana is a wonderful place to live and both Bozeman and Missoula are nice college towns. I would highly recommend pursuing the honors program, however, for a more positive academic experience.</p>

24

<p>i spent this past summer in Missoula and LOVED it. From what I hear, the weather in the winter isn't too terrible (not much worse than Western Mass, where I go to school now, or Minneapolis, where I may go after graduation). Air quality is bad though--I was there during forest fire season and asthmatics were having a rough time. </p>

<p>Overall, the city is great, there's tons of school spirit, and the campus is pretty. It seems like if you wanted to be challenged academically you could easily do so, but you could also skate through.</p>

25

<p>We have a friend who is a freshman at U of M Missoula and according to her mom she likes it. She is smart young woman who got a number of merit scholarships and is currently planning to be a physical therapist. Missoula is a beautiful town. I am pretty sure she is in the Honors program.</p>