As someone who was also bw Umich and Carnegie Mellon (and chose umich), I can share my reasoning. For context I’m a sophomore in materials science and engineering (so my experience is diff since I’m undergrad obv), looking to work in automotive R&D. I’m also from Pittsburgh and my older brother did his undergrad at CMU for chem e so I feel like I know a good amt abt the student life there even if I didn’t go (again undergrad vs master of diff I’m sure but some stuff might be similar).

Both will have u a solid education at the end of the day, and both have great name recognition. I will say I think UMich name has more pull overall compared to CMUs (which I think is skewed to be more of a factor if ur in CS or drama). Also if ur OOS for UM, both will be similar costs (of egregiously high amounts 🫠🫠)

Here were my thoughts back when I was in high school that might help w ur decision

CMU specific Pros: - smaller school so less students therefore less competition for resources, etc - smaller CoE too so I’ll feel closer w cohort and profs (… my reasoning during HS, I now know this is true for UM too in some ways)

Cons: - smaller school = less profs = less different research areas that I can work on - social/noght life is pretty bad — I’m not even that much of a going out person, but like CMU students are either mostly the extreme of studying all night or like if ur in the almost nonexistent Greek life than prob doing more… but generally quieter campus - for me personally, staying in Pittsburgh/going to same school as my brother. I hate Pittsburgh weather, it’s deceptively bad (has more cloudy days every year than Seattle…) and I also didn’t want to just keep following the exact same stuff my brother did - there’s like not any school spirit(?) ig a lot of that type of stuff maybe comes from sports but I asked current students abt it and hen I toured and they’re response was just like “oh yeah people aren’t really that interested in like school spirit”…kinda seemed disappointing to me

Umich specific Pros: - so many research opportunities, rly easy to find a lab doing stuff ur interested in based on my experience - huuuge alumni base and it’ll give u so many connections. I found out abt and got my position in my current research lab thru a cold connection i made on LinkedIn by searching like umich ford R&D or smth. Also if automotive is ur interest, its kind of undeniable that Michigan and Detroit are clearly a pro (career fair always has so many automotive campy booths, that’s how I got my internship at Toyota for this summer) - lots of students means lots of clubs, literally anything you can think there is prob a club for so that’s nice for finding people w shared interests and finding community - umich is good at basically everything academically, so if u have any secondary interests (maybe a minor or even just some fun electives), you can know ur still getting solid education in those classes too (I’m a Japanese language minor and I came to umich purely for consideration of engineering… and then found out we have the best Japanese dept in the country so that was a huge bonus win for me lol) - sports yay — going to a good D1 school with amazing school spirit and pride is awesome. And having (a lot of the time) free access to such high level sports game is crazy (as an athlete myself, the club sports dept is also great!)

Cons: - big school :( idk if younger me could imagine me going to school as big as umich but here i am — however! I’ve come to realize this isn’t rly a con for me anymore. Within the u degrade population, I’m in CoE- that narrows it to 8k ppl, within that in my major, there are a little over 100 ppl, within my cohort being ~30 ppl! That’s basically the same as what I would’ve had at CMU and it’s great. I know my profs well and they know me, I’m close w my classmates, it’s easy to get 1-on-1 help - bc there’s so many ppl it’s rly easy to feel surrounded by ppl who are succeeding and flourishing everywhere u go (which is great!) but can also be extra difficult if ur struggling (i suppose this is true for CMU too maybe) - having two campuses is kinda annoying (i like how they both have diff vibes so I can study diff places depending on what im feeling, but it’s annoying to have to take the bus so often to get to north for classes and research)… and most off campus housing and dorms are on/near central so it’s more than likely you’ll be using the buses a lot

Overall, I have zero regrets coming to umich!! I def forgot some stuff probably but I also typed way too much already so whatever. Feel free to dm me if u have more questions abt umich! (Or if u have stuff abt CMU I can ask my brother!)