<p>Mother, are you in-state or out-of-state? Of course, the answer has no bearing on MY response about our son’s satisfaction with Michigan. But you might get additional insight by sharing that info, and also including what area of study your son or daughter might pursue.</p>
<p>In our case, we feel doubly blessed that we’re in-state for Michigan, and that our son garnered a generous merit award to attend. He is a super lucky guy, because his area of study is music, and the odds of both having a nationally top-drawer conservatory in your state that a) admits you at all and b) gives you academic merit money is, well, normally a longshot.</p>
<p>Michigan was his first choice among many very attractive programs at pretty elite universities, in part, because he enjoyed the variety and diversity it offered and in part due to the specific teachers in his highly specialized area of music/technology/composition. For music students, you want to attend where the mentors are. His department and the SOM have truly some of the best of the best in terms of teachers. I suspect that is true elsewhere in highly ranked programs. You can see the difference in his work from the start to end of a term. It’s quite remarkable. That corroborates his own assessment of his teachers as “awesome” – even the ones who are brutal 
(He has, no doubt, been challenged to stretch himself.)</p>
<p>In our case, we’ve been extremely happy with the leadership of his department, his skill development, support and personal attention he’s received. His classes are virtually all intimate in nature – but that comes with the territory of his major and is not necessarily true of other majors with first year weeder lectures.</p>
<p>He loves Ann Arbor, the “vibe” and the variety. The facilities are top notch for his field – and I believe you’ll find that true in many disciplines due to strong Alumni participation and robust endowment.</p>
<p>I agree that students learn most from their peers in a student body and Michigan has been a great fit for him – all walks of life, very diverse, but very intelligent and creative overall. He’s met some exceptionally talented people who he admires.</p>
<p>In terms of downsides, there is a collection of them that I suspect frequent most large research universities – in electives, registration and scheduling can be an issue and you don’t always get what you want. Though a well-oiled machine, given its size, UMich is given to the odd bureaucratic snag here and there. Eg. it seems to have difficulty matching grad requirements with the SOM requirements online, etc. Some system errors can put you in mind of the movie Brazil ;)</p>
<p>Housing resources can be scarce in that you don’t have a lot of control over where you end up at least in Freshmen and soph years, but in our case, we weren’t worried about that. Some facilities are newish/nice…some old, small, a little weary. All seem relatively expensive, but demand for housing near the U. in AA is very high, so you get what you get.</p>
<p>If you are out of state, I would be of two minds. On one hand, I feel UMich is pretty unique in its spirit, network, robust endowment, resources and overall academic quality. You can find small, socratic style learning opportunities, as well as the more traditional large uni-style classes.</p>
<p>But at the same time, out-of-state full pay is exceedingly expensive. While it will be slightly less expensive than at a top ranked private, it will be considerably more than <em>many</em> other OOS schools. So in terms of “value” - it’s really more fit and discipline specific. Eg. if your son or daughter wanted to do theater/broadway/music theater - then yes, every bit as worthy as a handful of other schools similarly well regarded in those areas.</p>
<p>If your son or daughter wanted to study a general bachelors in English and you lived in a state with strong options, I might wonder that you’d be able to find a comparable and more economic fit there. So it’s all about context and fit at the end of the day.</p>