<p>Let’s have a crack at this…</p>
<p>1) Registration takes place over about 2-3 weeks. You get lumped into groups based on how many credits you have, and then those groups randomly get assigned registration times in a 2-3 day window. So say everybody with 100+ credits gets assigned a registration time in the first 2 days, people with 80-99 credits get a registration time in the next 2 days, and so on. Technically your registration date is just when you’re allowed to officially register for classes online. You can change your classes up until the drop/add deadline, which is about 4.5 weeks into the semester. If you transferred, for your first semester you would register for classes during transfer orientation, which IIRC is after all returning students, but before incoming freshmen.</p>
<p>2) [College</a> of Literature, Science, and the Arts](<a href=“http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg/bulletin/chap3/]College”>http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/cg/bulletin/chap3/) </p>
<p>In a nutshell, you have “distribution” credits (7 credits humanities, 7 social science, 7 natural science, and then a 9 more from select categories) because the university strives to make well-rounded citizens, or something like that. There’s a first year writing requirement (which you’ll probably get out of for some equivalent class at UNC), and an “upper-level” writing class (supposed to be in your field of study, so you can learn the conventions of that area, but it doesn’t have to be). You have to “demonstrate second year proficiency” in some language, either via placement test or by getting a passing grade in a second year second semester language course. There’s a “quantitative reasoning” requirement, which is met by taking pretty much anything requiring any level of math whatsoever. You also have to take a course dealing with “issues of race and ethnicity”. It’s not quite as bad as it seems, because classes can meet more than one requirement. For example, it’s fairly likely that a class dealing with race and ethnicity (or women’s issues, I guess) will qualify as humanities/social science.</p>
<p>3) Michigan loves their diversity, so it makes sense that we’d have a strong Afro-American studies program. As far as communications/screenwriting…I have no clue.</p>
<p>4) Protesting isn’t quite as lively as it was back in the 70s, but there are still some student movements. Last year a group got the University to stop all their sales of Coke products because of something to do with purported labor violations in South America. I think there’s something like 1000 officially recognized student groups, so on the whole students are pretty active. The opportunities are all there, it’s just a matter of having the initiative to go after them.</p>
<p>5) Transfer students are at the bottom of the housing totem pole, so your housing situation would be kind of different from an incoming freshmen. Not all the dorms are grouped by major, but there are things called Residential Communities which take up chunks of certain dorms, and are devoted to a specific program. You could try applying to a Residential Community, and then you’d be put in the corresponding dorm. I’m not exactly sure how they handle transfer students, but it’d be worth looking into.</p>
<p>6) Dorm food isn’t always great, but I’ve found it to be managable. The last year or two they’ve been working on having things like salads, pizza, hamburgers/fries, etc available everyday for people who don’t like the main course. The list of what’s being served at each dorm is posted a week or two in advance online, so you can see if it’s worth going. Usually for each eating period, there’s a “Maize” meal and a “Blue” meal, and nearby dorms will offer opposing meals. So if your dorm isn’t serving something you like, the dorm across the street will have a completely different set of options.</p>
<p>7) I’m not sure how many people visit Detroit, because there’s no effective transportation between the two unless you have your own car. I go every so often for things like plays and sporting events, but Detroit really isn’t that great of a place to just visit. You’d really only go for a specific event. Plus, I don’t think that many people run out of things to do in Ann Arbor =].</p>
<p>8) I’ve lived here my whole life, so I don’t have much to judge it against. As long as there are students around, the city is fairly lively and active. Personally, many of the locals think the town is at it’s best when the students leave. The removal of all the student’s stress is palpable, and the overall feeling is very nice and relaxed. There’s lots of surrounding forest and wilderness, and a decent amount of trails that go through said forests, and along the Huron River.</p>
<p>9) Depends on the campus events. As far as sports, Michigan Stadium has largest capacity in the country, and Yost is one of the most intimidating ice arenas to play at in the country. Basketball team has struggled since the self-imposed sanctions from the Fab Five scandal. Every other campus event I’ve been to has been fairly well attended.</p>
<p>10) Depends on how closely related they are. The University is divided into smaller colleges (Literature Science and Arts, LSA, is the main one, along with business, engineering, kinesiology, art and design, architecture, music, etc). If you want to major is two different colleges, each of them has their own set of requirements, which means you’ll need to take something like 150+ credits instead of 120. If you want to do two majors within LSA (I’d guess Afro-American studies and Communications/Screenwriting), it should be pretty easy.</p>
<p>11) I think Michigan is closer to something like 60% in-state. I’m currently dating a girl from Alabama, one of my best friends is from Long Beach CA, and one of my other best friends is a Korean citizen. Last week a bunch of people in my class (including the teacher) were talking about how many hours it takes to fly back to their home countries (Taiwan, Malaysia, etc). Off the top of my head, I know I’ve also met people from Germany, Nigeria, Austria, Venezuela. One of my classes had a 30ish year old Iraqi immigrant in it (and a kid from some African country, forget which one). When I worked at our summer math camp, we had a Korean Academy send over a whole class, a bunch of kids from Turkey, the top physics and top math students in Portugal, a few from Hong Kong/China/Japan, I think one from the American Samoa. And this is coming from a midwestern white boy whose high school sends 40ish kids to U of M each year, and knew a whole lot of in-state people before coming here. I’d say we’re doing pretty good in the diversity department.</p>
<p>12) All I know about fraternities is they exist, and if you don’t care for them, you barely notice they exist.</p>
<p>13) I don’t think it’d be that bad. There’s somebody on here who recently transferred from Penn State, so he’d know more.</p>