(UMich) What an awful university

How this student rated the school

Educational Quality	C-	Faculty Accessibility	C
Useful Schoolwork	B	Excess Competition	C-
Academic Success	B	Creativity/ Innovation	C
Individual Value	D+	University Resource Use	B-
Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty	B+	Friendliness	D+
Campus Maintenance	B	Social Life	C
Surrounding City	A+	Extra Curriculars	B
Safety	B+

Describes the student body as: Arrogant, Snooty, Closeminded Describes the faculty as: Friendly, Arrogant

Male

ACT:29

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Quite Bright

Lowest Rating Individual Value	D+

Highest Rating Surrounding City	A+

He cares more about Friendliness than the average student.

Date: Nov 21 2014
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
What an awful university. It promises diversity and intellectual engagement to lure above-average students from attending smaller universities; then, once they accept, the university treats them as faceless numbers.

Honestly, don't allow it to fool you: the university is a predominantly white institution that expects relentless praise for its few social justice efforts (ex. a presentation about micro-aggressions). The campus's LGBTQ environment amounts to a few organizations and a nightclub that has a "gay night." Never mind the fact that most students spew sexist, racist, heteronormative, classist, and/or transphobic comments on a daily basis. Personally, I've never experienced so much blatant homophobia in my life, and my town is easily the most reactionary in its county.

This segues into the next problem: the student body. Dear Christ, has there ever been a more complacent, egotistical student body? Excluding the Ivy League, of course. However, unlike the Ivy League, gaining admission here is not a significant accomplishment. The academic requirements are above-average. The slogan

Leaders and the Best

is just that?a slogan! Tragically, most students believe they ARE leaders and the best…somehow. One would imagine that the students, at some point during their four years here, would listen to their peers' comments and observe their (lack of) academic passion and realize the superficiality of the slogan. Instead, you have the vast majority of students parading around as though everyone owes them everything. This doesn't even comment upon their collective classism and exclusionary behaviors. Obviously, not everyone here is like this, but most are?probably around 75% or so. Why subject yourself to that?

As for academics, they're lackluster. As others have noted, the graduate programs here excel and earn the school international renown. The undergrad programs, especially those involved with LSA, aren't anything special. Only one of my classes, an art history course, has challenged my perspective, and it's worth noting that this is my only class taught by a passionate professor. The others disappoint me. A GSI teaches my math class. Every time I bother to attend the "class"?I've given up hope on his ability to teach long ago?students correct his basic mistakes during notes. Then, he silently slumps around the room after he assigns group problems. Ugh. I'm currently in an upper-level English class, and my professor (yes, professor, not GSI) consistently confuses "its" with "it's." Worse yet, she often fails to remember characters' names and their roles from the novels we read. How the hell does the university have the audacity to brand itself as a world-class undergraduate institution when it employs village idiots as professors?!

Thus, one might ask what the positives are. Ann Arbor. It's very beautiful and has several amazing restaurants, bookstores, shops, etc. There are also several nice nature areas engrained around the city. It's a wonderful location to live as an adult. The university's campus itself is also quite stunning, though it feels like a perpetual construction site. But you can at least enjoy the areas that aren't currently polluted by noise.

The academics are also very easy, so that might appeal to a certain type of slacker. The entire place feels like a high-end resort that's filled with snobby suburbanites. Don't expect your experience to be different if you're enrolling in LSA, excluding the obligatory mid-term "hell week."

I can easily state that enrolling here was one of my life's worst decisions. I blindly accepted the university's lies, but within my first week here, I realized that I had made a mistake. It's not the superior intellectual institution that it once was, nor is it the bastion of social and artistic progress it once was. Seriously, to future freshmen who have recently become disillusioned and are considering a transfer, do it! I allowed it a semester to prove its worth, and if anything, it only has further appalled me. At least apply to other universities now so that you have the option to transfer later. I didn't. Now I have to waste another semester here before I can transfer to a better university next fall. I have no idea how I'm going to survive another semester here.

To reiterate: if you're a grad student, apply here; if you're an undergrad, apply to another university. To one that will treat you as an individual. To one that lacks an arrogant student body.

Responses

Maybe you should go back home to your local junior college until you can transfer elsewhere. Have you tried calculus or physics to challenge yourself academically? I have not heard those classes to be easy. Maybe they would lend into a more challenging, well rounded education for you. As an alumni, I can tell you the marketability of the degree as well as the connections you make are priceless!

Totally. The. Truth.

I love the first response. Typical fascist A-hole from Michigan. The original poster sums up everything wrong with this university. I think the most telling statistic about the personality of the student body is average family income. I can save you a trip to the financial aid office. It's $160,000. Yes, $160,000.

The only thing the original poster gets wrong is that you should NOT come here as a grad student either. The best description for this school is the "edification of the average". Note, not the "average person", the "average" itself. This school uplifts and puts on a pedestal everything average. The students' arrogance given their total underachievement is staggering. I guess even that is an achievement of sorts.

I find that UofM's reputation comes entirely from it's sports, and it's like all the students and parents are here patting themselves on back for being somehow associated with Umich sports. "Go Blue!", yeah right. I think the real travesty is the lack of room at UofM for the exceptional. The environment fosters grade=C-level thinking and achievement, but B->A level thinking/effort finds itself without resource, time, or support. Get your C and then go to the game. One of my math engineering friends put it best—everyone's got time to go to the game, but nobody has the slightest idea what a first order differential equation is. He was a grad student in engineering and math.

LMAO. 29?! Quite Bright?!? You've got to be kidding me haha. Stop taking so many easy classes.

In all seriousness though, you're surrounding yourself with the wrong people. If you're not in Engineering or Ross, Umich is nothing more than above average. Transfer to Computer Science or Accounting and then let me know how "lackluster" the academics are.

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