BTW My parents are kinda anti small liberal arts colleges. The closest I got was Wellesley…
Virtually every sorority participates in philanthropy - especially the “matching t-shirts and chants” ones. FWIW, despite all the crap us non-Greeks give social Greek Life, they are truly a powerhouse for philanthropy. What other communities on campus can raise tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over such short periods of time for great causes?
If you want a service-oriented Greek org, look into APO. it is a co-ed communtiy service fraternity. There are also a plethora of non-Greek service and philanthropy orgs on campus. If the party/sports bother you, you do not have to really participate. If partying is not your thing, your contact with Greek Life will be limited anyway. If partying is your thing, however (it is for most U-M students), then Greek Life is almost impossible to ignore for your first year and maybe your second year. Plenty of people do not partake, however, and there are other cool things to do.
While most U-M students love to party, I just want to dispel the myth that most students go out every weekend. This is false. Most people I have met go out maybe 2 or 3 times a month (not including Football Saturday tailgates). Some people. however, do go out almost every week, and that too Thurs-Fri-Sat (if we plotted student partying frequency in a distribution, it would be probably be bimodal). A lot of these people happen to be in social Greek Life. I did not join the going-out-at-least-once-every-weekend bandwagon until last semester (fall senior year), and I still missed a weekend or two.
@warblersrule I only applied to one other Ivy, I applied to some medium sized schools, my parents aren’t really down for the whole small school thing 
@warblersrule I might consider applying on the DL actually
I don’t know how many of these organizations are dedicated to philanthropy, but there are 1,466 of them to choose from at UMich.
As but one example, the March of Dimes is very well-known and has an “outpost” at UMich:
It may help people give you better advice if you shared some of the other colleges to which you applied.
BTW, U Michigan is very competitive, so how much more competitive are your Reach schools?
@MWolf Some others (that my parents would consider if I were to get in, but I also like) are UVA, Georgetown, UPenn & Northwestern
@billnyegirl UVA is comparable to UMichigan, at least by way of acceptance rates, SATs and GPAs. Unless you considered UMich a reach, none of the rest would be considered far reaches. So, unless you need to give your response to UMich before you hear back from them, you can wait. You have a chance at any of them. Not a huge chance, but higher than the acceptance rate would indicate (still reaches, though, except for UVA which is a match, if UMich was a match).
However, all four suffer from the same issues which you did not like at UMich. They’re all much more elitist than UMich, especially UPenn and Georgetown. So, unless there are specific reasons to like any of them better than UMich, which has to do with the school itself, I think that UMich would be a great choice.
As for doing better in HS, well, UMich is a top-ranked school, and it is very selective. That means that you had to do very well to be accepted. I con’t want to be mean about anybody, but whoever has told you that you should have done better, and that would have resulted in you being accepted to an Ivy, is somewhat delusional.
Good luck, whatever you decide.
@billnyegirl my son is not at Northwestern (we are from Chicago) for the same reasons you don’t want to go to Michigan.
But I will tell you that most here consider Northwestern to have a more elitist feel to it with the same student population stated above. In other words, same kids, different school.
Michigan has a much larger sports presence than Northwestern, the students take sports very seriously there, it’s not Alabama or the SEC but it’s big. Michigan alumni I know are still not over their loss to Ohio State, they probably won’t till they beat them, or at last when football season starts. Northwestern fans are not into their sports like that. I don’t know how to say it but basically the UM fan is a lot more involved emotionally with sports than the NU fan. But I think Greek life is much bigger at NU than UM.
Also, what’s your potential major or school you applied to at UM?
@theloniusmonk International relations(LSA)! Northwestern is only ranked a little better than Michigan for this major.
@MWolf I was above average Stats for UMich, but about 30 kids from my school (I would say 20 are qualified) apply each year and only 3 get spots. So even though I am in the score range for UVA, it feels like a reach(-ish). I want to go into international relations, Georgetown is the place to be! Plus I lived on the campus for a month, the elitist aspect is my only reservation
With respect to sociocultural aspects, The Official Preppy Handbook, in a chapter that described college atmospheres, listed Georgetown as a runners up in its “The College of Your Choice” category. So, Georgetown can be regarded as Preppy (the authors capitalize the term). However, and thankfully, schools of this type are sufficiently democratic as to be open to all, so elitism may not actually apply in the way in which you’ve expressed concern. In contrast, Michigan was listed as an “Out of the League” school – those characterized as “least Preppy” – seemingly because of its large size, substantial in-state enrollment and big-time sports.
@billnyegirl My advice is, FWIW, if you don’t have to respond to UMich immediately, wait for Georgetown’s response, and go there if you are accepted. If UMich wants an answer before the rest of the colleges will give you an answer, I would go with UMich. Unless any of the colleges which you mentioned, which are not as good as UMich, have something amazing which would recommend them, I would lay them kindly to rest as one does to one’s safety schools, after one is accepted into a match or reach.
Unless you are sure that the students who apply to UMich from your school have similar stats as you, the fact that only 10% of the applicants from your school are accepted doesn’t really indicate that it was a reach for you. So I would look at UVA as, maybe, a low reach. Not that it matters - people are rejected from their matches all the time, otherwise they would be considered safety schools…
In any case, I’m sure that you will do very well at UMich, and have a great time.
Good luck whatever happens, and congrats again at getting into UMich, it is a very selective school, after all.
A deposit is due no later than 5/1 for UMich.
@billnyegirl like you, my son did not get into his ED school and has been accepted to UMich LSA as well. We consider it to be an excellent option for him. There are some other music schools he is hoping to audition into (including U Michigan SMTD which he is auditioning for in a couple of weeks) but the more he learns about U Mich from current students and recent alumni, the more excited he is about attending.
“International relations(LSA)! Northwestern is only ranked a little better than Michigan for this major.”
Well Georgetown may be a little better for I/R than the other colleges but they’re all really strong in that major. See how things shake out in March/April, but as others have said I would consider UM the least elite of the schools you’re considering. Good luck!
“Some others (that my parents would consider if I were to get in, but I also like) are UVA, Georgetown, UPenn & Northwestern”
billnyegirl, you said you want to avoid Greek life. Penn, NU and UVa all have more prominent Greek life than Michigan.
Your perception of Michigan is way off. The students you will run into at Michigan will, for the most part, be more interested in their academic pursuits than in football or Greek life, very much like the students at the four universities you mentioned above.
“International relations(LSA)! Northwestern is only ranked a little better than Michigan for this major.”
billnyegirl, International Relations is not offered at Michigan or Northwestern. Both of them offer Political Science, and Michigan’s department in that major is actually ranked a little better (#4) than Northwestern’s (#23), Penn’s (#19), UVa’s (#37) and Georgetown’s (#33)
moooop, International Studies and International Relations are not the same major. Michigan also offers a major in International Studies, but it is not interchangeable with International Relations or Political Science.
Given the multidisciplinary nature of International Studies programs, there are no rankings.