UM-Flint: How I Came and Why I Stayed

I never considered UM-Flint when applying for colleges. I had my heart set on Ann Arbor after touring the campus a couple times and had a couple other schools scattered across the state as backups just in case. Halfway through my senior year, after all the priority deadlines had passed, details of financial aid came in and I knew it would not be smart to go to Ann Arbor and rack up a ton of excess debt.

I hurriedly applied to UM-Flint and was accepted. Because I had switched my schools at such a late point in the game, I did the one thing every high school guidance counselor advises against and never visited campus until orientation. Luckily, I fell in love with UM-Flint and the surrounding area almost immediately.

Originally, I had only planned on staying here for a year or two before transferring over to Ann Arbor once I could afford it. To my surprise, I wound up ditching my transfer plans after my first year and decided to stay here at UM-Flint for the duration of my college experience.

The decision was easy enough due to a number of factors; downtown Flint’s ongoing transformation was something I felt like I wanted to experience firsthand, I loved the tiny class sizes here compared to almost any larger public university, and I really enjoyed the more rigorous structure of the Honors program. Everything sort of added up and I figured there wasn’t much point in heading to another university if I could get what I wanted here.

In the end, I’m glad I stayed here. I’ve been able to take some amazing classes and actually feel like I’m participating in them rather than just being lectured at as another face in a crowded room. UM-Flint is definitely smaller than the college I might have pictured when dreaming about my future back in high school but it’s definitely the only place I can imagine myself at now. 🙂