<p>hey....i got into LSA...UMich is my 3rd choice, I'm still waiting on UVA and Northwestern, but I was just wondering if someone could tell me what Ann Arbor is like, along with the students/community setting at UMich...my hbrother goes there but we don't really talk much so i'd appreciate it if someone could fill me in....like what the students are like, what cool places there are in ann arbor aka food, shopping, how big it is, etc etc...thanks guys!</p>
<p>Michigan and Ann Arbor are hard to describe. The three schools you are looking at (Michigan, Northwestern and UVA) are all very similar in most regards. All three are located in nice college towns, all three have great reputations and all three have great school spirit. </p>
<p>The students at Michigan are a very diverse bunch. There is no way of describing the individual students...or the collective for that matter. I have already posted this in another thread. Michigan has over 24,000 undergrads. Of those, 8,000 are out-of state and another 1,500 are international. And then, you have 14,000 graduate students, of which 8,000 are out of state and another 3,500 are international. So out of the 38,000 students who study on campus, 16,000 (42%) are American but from out of state and another 5,000 (13%) are international. There is no way you can describe this kind of student body in words alone.</p>
<p>There are some qualities that are shared by many of the students. Most students are very talented and academically accomplished. Most students are hungry for knowledge and ambitious. In general, Michigan students are well rounded. They are curious about the World around them, they like going to Hockey and Football games, they party from time to time and they study hard because they have goals for the future...and their goals are usually pretty lofty. </p>
<p>Ann Arbor and the University offer great venues for all sorts of social activities. Quaint restaurants, cafes, stores and bookstores line the many historic streets of Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is known for having more bookstores per capita than any city in the country. Only Boulder has more...maybe. The restaurants are very diverse, with everything from upscale seafood restaurants to budget ethnic restaurants...and Zingerman's, the best Deli West of NYC! </p>
<p>In terms of shopping, you have a couple of nice malls in the city of Ann Arbor, lots of movie theaters, including Showcase cinemas, which has 24 theaters etc... Ann Arbor is also a mere 30-45 minutes drive from Detroit/Windsor. Neither of those two is a great city, but they do have incredible night clubs (because of the sheer number of musicians who hail from Detroit) and shopping malls. You also have Chicago and Toronto within a 4 hour drive from Ann Arbor and one of the 5 largest airports in the nation (with straight flights to every major city in the US, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Madrid, Rome, Tokyo and Shangai) a mere 20 minute drive from Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>And then, you have campus activities, from the World class art exhibits that make it to our museums and world famous artists and ensembles that make it to our accoustically perfect Hill Auditorium to the largest crowd (110,000+) in the nation that gets together every other Saturday in the Fall to watch the Michigan Wolverines take on some poor victim on the football field!</p>
<p>In short, I cannot think of a more ideal setting for a college education!</p>
<p>Good luck with Northwestern and UVA...and keep us posted.</p>
<p>same thing here:so far, I got in to Umich , Northwestern, Case Western , Brandeis and U Maryland... so far i narrowed my choice down to Umich or Northwestern. My preference is for a medium sized good school in a nice setting with good academics/prestige etc... my feeling so far is that northwestern is the better of the two , but i have this gut feeling that northwestern is a very serious school as in not much school spirit etc.. whereas Umich i get the feeling that its really a nice fun school. Am i wrong? Any comments that would help me make a choice are appreciated...</p>
<p>What about transportation? Is a car necessary? What do most people do to get around?</p>
<p>I don't think a lot of first-years have cars--there is nowhere to park, really. U-M has a bus system that runs around campus (mainly to get people from North campus to Central Campus) and most everything else a student would want to get to on a regular basis is within walking distance. The city also has a bus system, and anyone with a U-M id can ride without paying a fare.</p>
<p>As someone who lives (and parks) in Ann Arbor, I urge you do not bring a car!
Seriously, I was a grad student here without a car. You don't need one. Bus transportation is free, not just on campus but all over the city. You can't possibly drive to class because there is no place for students to park on campus. And 99% of what you need is within walking distance. All this doesn't stop tons of students from bringing cars to campus, however.</p>