The University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

(1) There are two campuses, about 1.5 miles away, and busing between them on a daily basis is a pain in the booty; bus rides take 40 minutes round trip, including waiting, and they are often PACKED during peak class hours. (If you don't stand in the right place, then you may have to wait for another bus.) But ride the bus you will if you either (a) are planning to take a combination of liberal arts courses (Central Campus) and engineering/art/music/architecture courses, or (b) you are a liberal arts student who is placed in North Campus Housing. (fyi: Bursley, the north campus dorm rumored to be the third most populous dorm in the nation, is actually friendlier than those on Central Campus, and you will make lots of friends if you live there.)

Furthermore, if you are a commuter, then you may find yourself in need of eating lunch on the "other campus" (depending on your perspective) one day between classes. Don't expect to find anyone you know in the cafeteria, unless you bring them with you from your last class. But that is sometimes difficult because most people have another class to attend around lunch time.

(2) The dorm rooms themselves are nice enough, but don't plan to meet people through housing (unless you live in Bursley on North Campus, which seems to be the exception). Most people seemingly don't spend much time in their rooms, opting instead to go somewhere else for study, exercise, and relaxation. And you probably won't find too many open doors in your hall (again, unless you live in Bursley). And by the way, it is possible to get "bad" roomates here: one year, my roomate had the audacity to bring his girlfriend over on weekends and have sex in the room when he knew I'd be there. I told my RA, and he said something like, "Good luck working that one out!" And if you think that everything will work out ok because you are applying to live in "Honors Housing" in South Quad, then guess again: it's no different than living anywhere else! You are more likely to hear someone blasting "Wifey" by Next than you are to find a group of kids discussing Plato.

(3) During my time at UM, I was hard pressed to find people who actually cared about what they were studying; that is, if they had some free time, they would think about (that subject), whatever it is. Case in point: one Saturday morning, I walked into a dorm lounge to find some kids studying calculus for Calculus 112. I asked them what they were doing, and one of them replied something like, "Calculus 112. F*****g Calculus 112."

(4) Professors are nice, very knowledgeable, and speak English very well... but if you plan on taking 18 credits, then - between the possible busing, the walking across across campus, and your other classes - you very well may find it difficult to make it to any of their office hours.

(5) If you are an out of state student, then this place will cost you at least $30,000 a year (and rising). You can spend the same amount of money or less and GO TO SCHOOL AT A SMALL COLLEGE, avoiding all of the above problems, and getting in return smaller class sizes, more personal attention from the professors, conversations with people who don't have somewhere else they need to be in 5 seconds, and other students who actually (hopefully!) care about learning just for the sake of learning. (as opposed to learning for the sake of fulfilling a req or getting rich)If you are going to attend Michigan, my heart goes out to you. My advice to you is: do the best you can (go to classes, try to make office hours when you can, finish assignments, BE CURIOUS) and, by all means, join a student organization! If you do not join a student organization, then 9 times out of 10 you will be a loner at Michigan. There are 25,000 undergrads at Michigan; unless you plan on being friends with all of them (bad idea), then you need to find some way to make the school a little smaller.