Quote:
Originally Posted by AGDee
Yes, and his major is in the Residential College at Michigan which is how you can make that school a little smaller. Kids in the RC all live in the same dorm two years in a row. A lot of their classes are in that dorm itself and are smaller.
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I'm going to talk as an enthusiastic Wolverine here -- from out of state -- so please understand my bias. I also volunteer as a recruiter for UM in my area, so I go to college fairs and talk to wild-eyed, panicking 16-year-olds (and their equally wild-eyed parents) about Michigan on a regular basis.
I always tell them that it's not my job to get them to go to Michigan. It's my job to tell them the truth, and let them decide whether it sounds good, because it does no one any good for them to pick the wrong school because some recruiter at a college fair or alumni event was funny and enthusiastic and convincing. Of COURSE I'm enthusiastic; I went there and had a good experience. But if it's not the right place for them, that's more than okay; Michigan will survive.
Yes, the place is huge. It absolutely is. But that, for me, was one of its biggest benefits. There are tens of thousands of students ... but it's not like you have to pack onto a single elevator with them all every day and hope everybody used deodorant. Instead, you get the benefits of a place with world-class resources that are designed for 25,000 students. That? Is awesome. Whatever it is that you want to do, no matter how out-of-the-box -- or downright bizarre -- there likely is someone there to teach you, AND at least a few people who want to do it with you. Want to build a solar car? Want to learn precision figure skating? Want to create your own internship with the football team? Want to work with a MacArthur genius grant winner? Want to do research with groundbreaking software that's the first of its kind in the world? Want to play Capture the Flag on the Diag in the middle of the night? (Not that I ever did that last one. Okay, I did. But I did the one before that, too. And the one before that. And the one before that. And friends of mine did the first two.) The place has the resources for you to do it, and you meet incredible people in the process.
Speaking of resources, because the place is built to cater to a large group, there are all of the resources you could ever want, IF you go to them. Indeed, no one will hold your hand. No one will come to your dorm room and ask why you haven't been to class in 3 weeks. But as far as I'm concerned, that is a feature, not a bug. I mean...welcome to life. If I don't show up to work, I get fired, not patted on the back. However, if you walk into the office of your professor -- usually a world-renowned subject-matter expert -- or the financial aid office or the counseling center, they're there waiting to help you.
Then, once an unfamiliar place becomes familiar, that is part of what makes it get small. That means that ANY school gets familiar and small quickly...and a smaller school doesn't always have anywhere to go. If you NEED an insular community, that can be great. But does he need that? Or is he just concerned about being somewhere unfamiliar? There are 6,999 other freshmen. They are ALL looking to meet people, find their group, and figure out who they are. He won't be the only one. You'd be AMAZED how quickly it happens that the "huge university" becomes a place where you can't avoid seeing that one annoying ex-boyfriend. (He's married to someone else now with 3 kids, and he STILL emails every so often.)
No one else from my graduating class went to UM. I did not know a soul on that campus when I stepped on it in August 1993. I even had a bumpy few months when one of my roommates and I didn't get along. But I met people who are STILL some of my dearest friends on my freshman dorm hall, at my job, at my research projects, and in classes. I would choose the place all over again, size be darned; the bigger the school, the more awesome people there are to meet.
I'll shut up now. But I do want to note that sometimes I think kids from Michigan don't understand the awesome resource they have right there in their own state. For them, it's always been there; whatever, it's no big deal. I'm from Washington DC, where there is no state university (I had to pay out-of-state-tuition everywhere), and again, I go to college fairs in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, the last two of which have excellent state schools, and yet the kids (many of whom have parents who went to Maryland and UVA!) are falling over themselves to go to Michigan. If I could have gone to UM at in-state prices? Dude.
I hope he gets into Brown. As I mentioned upthread, I have friends who went there, and it also is a unique and fantastic place. But if he doesn't, seriously, have him look at UM with fresh eyes -- not against Brown or Northwestern, but as its own entity.
(That was the long version of my "But it's such a big school!" college-fair speech.)