<p>A bad Oakland doesn’t seem to make Berkeley suffer. It would be nice for Detroit to get better, but it hasn’t gotten better in DECADES. In the meantime, the University of Michigan is THRIVING!</p>
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<p>Suffer is the wrong word. You don’t think Berkeley being surrounded by a dump doesn’t have any negative impact on the school? You’re very wrong. And Silicon valley >>>>>>>> Metro Detroit</p>
<p>Alopez, what in the heck are you talking about? Detroit is a city…within a state…which has other urban areas so I see no correlation with Detroit public schools and UofM. I would hazard a guess that only a small number of students at UofM come from Detroit Public Schools as Michigan seems to “spread” its in-state students across the entire state and I would hazard a guess the city diversity of a select population like in-state “African-Americans” is even greater and represents the entire state.</p>
<p>42% of current UMich students are from out of state or international.</p>
<p>University of Southern California is surrounded by a terrible neighborhood. Thriving school. </p>
<p>California publics are not doing well financially, and still churning out excellent graduates of their schools.</p>
<p>Detroit is not even one of the top feeder school district for U of M. The top 20 feeder schools only contribute to 16% of the student body and 7 of them are from out of state. The only feeder school from Detroit area is Detroit Country Day which is a private school outside of Detroit. In other words, there is no way DPS would contribute to more than a fraction of 1% of student body to UMich at all. There is nothing what so ever the failing of Detroit city or DPS would have any impact at all for U of M. Yes, we do want to see Detroit to get out of trouble, so as Michigan and the rest of the country. But that has nothing to do with UMich at all.</p>
<p>“In general, the question I am trying to ask is whether or not I should take Detroit (mostly present-time) into consideration while thinking about applying to the University of Ann Arbor.”</p>
<p>NO.</p>
<p>“Detroit has also been unstable for the past 40 years or so now while the university has been successful, so I could also just be silly and this doesn’t even matter.”</p>
<p>You are just being silly.</p>
<p>[Ahead</a> of talks, feds find $100M for broke Detroit - Yahoo Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ahead-talks-feds-100m-broke-052231029.html]Ahead”>Ahead of talks, feds find $100M for broke Detroit)</p>
<p>lol here comes the bail out. More money down the black hole. </p>
<p>More of my money going to these leeches. Of course tax payers from other thriving cities and states should be on the hook for lazy union foodstamp crowd of this corrupt city. They should at least ask for a couple Van Gogh’s from the DIA or 2 giraffes from the Detroit Zoo in return…</p>
<p>The funny thing is, the money is coming from another black hole. Anyway, that $100M is nothing compared to the money wasted/spent by the corrupted officials in the past.</p>
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<p>DCD is the only feeder in Metro Detroit? Um no: [Feeding</a> the ‘U’: Why 16 percent of the student body comes from the same 20 high schools - The Michigan Daily](<a href=“http://www.michigandaily.com/content/feeder-schools]Feeding”>Feeding the 'U': Why 16 percent of the student body comes from the same 20 high schools)</p>
<p>A significant chunk of African-American freshmen come from DPS schools. So yes, a failing Detroit & and failing DPS absolutely impact the caliber of minority applicants, which Michigan is very conscious of.</p>
<p>And in the suburbs you have families of stature continuing to leave the state and their kids, who are would-be quality applicants, likely don’t apply to Michigan. So there is no question a depressed economy makes the in-state talent pool shallower, at the very least.</p>
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<p>Well, since roughly a 1/3 of Michigan-AA grads tend to stay in-state after graduation, I’d say the local and state-wide economy should absolutely be a factor when considering the school. I didn’t say it has to be the largest factor, but it certainly shouldn’t be ignored. A robust state-wide and Detroit economy would absolutely help the university, so I’m not sure why some of you think a depressed economy has no impact?</p>
<p>@alopez You’ve made it very clear that you have absolutely NO clue what you’re talking about.</p>
<p>Bloomfield Hills, the home of the super wealthy, with an average home value of 780k is only 30 minutes away from Detroit. Windsor, one of the nicest cities in Canada is located directly adjacent Detroit. Farmington Hills, the 30th safest City in America is located less than half an our hour away from Detroit. To say that the Metro-Detroit region is in massive suffering is comical and completely contrary to the truth. In fact, there are many people in the MD region would have no problem telling you that the area is better off today, than it was a decade or two ago.</p>
<p>Ann Arbor is no exception. Ann Arbor is considered one of the top 10 college towns, top 10 places to raise a family, top 3 places for young adults, top 15 smartest cities, top 10 happiest cities, top 10 best places to find a job, top 15 best regions for venture capital and even top 10 places to retire. Ann Arbor is anything but suffering.</p>
<p>As for the university, over the last 8 years, the University of Michigan’s endowment has skyrocketed from only $4.9 Billion, to the current $8.5 Billion. Michigan’s endowment was ranked the fastest growing endowment for a number of years, and with the new ~5 Billion capital campaign starting in November, I have no doubt in my mind that we could raise our endowment to >$10 Billion within just a couple of years. Again, Michigan is one of the only 3 public universities in the country to maintain a perfect AAA credit rating.</p>
<p>As for the university’s applicant pool, you are wrong once again. In the last decade, the number of people applying to U-M has increased from only 25,000, to a record high of 47,000 this last year (and expected to increase again next year). With the current number of applicants, Michigan’s acceptance rate has hit an all time low, the average accepted ACT has increased by 3 full points, and the average GPA has increased from 3.73 to 3.85. </p>
<p>The University of Michigan, just like Ann Arbor, is anything but suffering.</p>
<p>@alopez14,
Name the top feeder schools from DPS. Don’t mix up Ann Arbor, Farmington, Northville, Bloomsfield etc with City of Detroit or DPS. I know that is what you are intended to do. The #20 feeder has just over 30 students enrolled UMich in average per year between 2004 and 2009. I’ve read that articles many times even before the links on it went offline.</p>
<p>Hardly anyone at Michigan comes from Detroit. Bad Detroit schools is really a non-issue. Don’t worry about it. </p>
<p>Ann Arbor really isn’t very related to Detroit. </p>
<p>The economy of Michigan is improving. It was the worst back in 2008/2009 in terms of unemployment, but now it has improved to the point where unemployment is lower than in California, Illinois, and Georgia (other states too - I’m just listing the large ones) and is continuing to improve relative to other large states. </p>
<p>Metro Detroit outside of the City of Detroit itself (and a few other cities, like Pontiac) is very wealthy with a strong economy.</p>
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<p>Maybe, but African-Americans don’t make up a significant chunk of students at Michigan.</p>
<p>As of 2012, there were 1228 African American enrolled UM-AA. DPS needs to have multiple top feeder schools in order to have a “significant chunk” contribution to it. The top feed, Pioneer sends only around 150 to UMich per year and the #20 feeder sends around 30 per year. Not to mention the African American student population is only 4.7% of the total undergraduates on campus. The reverse statement is correct though. A significant chunk of students from DPS enrolled UMich are African American.</p>
<p>Never mind. I was naive enough to think we could have a constructive conversation, but this thread is just full of fanboys. You guys are right: the largest city in the state being bankrupt, three cities (including Detroit) being in the top 10 most violent in the nation, DPS being the worst public school system in the nation, Oakland County going from top 10 to not even top 25 wealthiest county in the nation, a state-wide unemployment rate of 9% (4th worst in the nation), and the deluge of college educated families fleeing the state have NO impact on the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>^ And most of those families do not live in Detroit to begin with.
One thing you should know is, the bankruptcy of the Big 3 had even multiple times the impact of the Detroit City bankruptcy, and yet, the University was not affected. The departure of Pfizer had a major impact in Ann Arbor which is still suffering, and yet, the University just got bigger. There is a big difference between the City government and local economy. The only exception perhaps is Washington DC.
It has been a constructive discussion when everything is based on fact and data.</p>
<p>By the way, Detroit is in Wayne county not Oakland, while Bloomfield is in Oakland Country and is one of the UMich feeder area.</p>
<p>Why are you so fixated on the African-American students? That just one of many possible examples I could have used. But since you are fixated on it, yes, UM cares a lot about preserving the quality of its in-state minority students. A diverse campus means nothing if the minorities you bring in can’t graduate. A large graduation gap between white and minority students has consequences for the university. So when DPS, Flint, etc. school systems fail, it absolutely has consequences in Ann Arbor. Just the same as a sagging Metro Detroit economy makes the suburban school feeders suffer, although it’s less distinguishable. It’s not poor families leaving the state, it’s mobile, college-educated families with kids who have a higher probability of applying to Michigan.</p>
<p>“A diverse campus means nothing if the minorities you bring in can’t graduate.”
A diverse campus means nothing regardless.
Admissions decisions should be based on quantifiable qualifications and competence, not skin color or sob stories. Unfortunately the university adopts racist affirmative action policies. So this is really a good thing. It makes it harder for the racists in the administration to cramp unqualified students in.</p>
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<p>So wrong. A distressed Detroit brings down the entire SE Michigan region. The crime, illiteracy and poverty bleeds into neighboring towns and counties. And whether you want to believe it or not, “Detroit” is synonymous with the entire state of Michigan to most of the nation. When people in California hear the flood of stories about what a cesspool Detroit is, most of them associate it with the entire state–hence this thread from the OP.</p>