My trip to Ann Arbor has been lovely. I didn’t take any pictures. Sorry (it was wet and rainy and somewhat cold and stuff when I had my camera). Very nice town… a bigger, better Morgantown. Flagship U.’s college town.
This Admitted Students Weekend convinced me that I’d be very happy to spend the next three years of my life in Ann Arbor. Unfortunately (?), I was already convinced of that, so this doesn’t help that much. However, I now have first-hand confirmation of the warm-and-fuzzies I’d expected from Michigan. I don’t know where to start. The events had their boring moments, and their greasy moments (breakfast this morning really hit my stomach with a thud, in a good way). They also had transcendent moments: the hilariously frank appeals clerk on the alumni panel this morning, the zingers from the (wonderful) admissions dean, and… well, that’s probably about it.
Looking back over my schedule:
The current student-led tour of the Law Quad was… well, it was a tour. It was nice. It’s gorgeous. I knew that coming in, but it was still cool to see the Reading Room and so on in person. The Lawyer’s Club seems doable, for a year. All the students I and others met were friendly and welcoming, whether that’s because they really are or they are living in fear of Dean Z. The faculty wine mixer in the Reading Room was nice, if a bit forced and awkward. I got to do some quality inter-prospective mingling, at least. I found out that 10,000 frequent flier miles were up for grabs for the student who’d come to greatest distance to attend the APALSA cultural show that evening, so I showed up to collect and missed the Bar Night.
Breakfast the next day was a little too early for everyone. I did get confirmation that UMich has nothing against a dual-booting Macbook (unlike NYU). It might be good to set up dual booting, leaving my Mac system intact but taking notes (and not installing any instant messengers, etc.) and exams on the Windows side.
Other panels were fairly… panelly.
The mock class and real class were great… great professors for both. The mock class turned out to be more of an explanation of the Socratic method and a brief foray into torts, while the real class in constitutional law gave us a great example of that method in action. Met some student groups. Ate some dinner. Had some sangria at Dominick’s, across from the school. Dropped by a brewery called Leopold’s. Dropped by a Phid House (“law frat”) party… eh. Came back.
This morning, the alumni panel was actually really interesting. We got to see alumni in very different places on their career paths, and (yes, I know they’re handpicked) they were probably even more enthusiastic than the students. Though he had to be pressed to admit it, one of the panelists litigated Booker before the Supreme Court: kind of a big deal.
Concluding remarks lasted under a minute.
In the afternoon and evening, I wandered around with some other admits and grazed on the various types of food on offer. The Arbor Brewing Company makes a tasty Hefeweizen, too. After some concluding Indian food (not bad, but sadly with a concept of “spicy” that’d be right at home in Hong Kong), I’m back in my hotel. I bit the bullet and booked a shuttle for tomorrow morning to the airport. I should be at LGA by afternoon. From there it looks like the M60 and subway to Penn Station, NJ Transit to Trenton, and SEPTA into Philadelphia. I couldn’t work out a hostel, but I pricelined a hotel for the next two nights. I’ll visit UPenn—halfheartedly, since I just got bad news from their financial aid department—but mostly just look around Philadelphia, which I’ve not yet been to.
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