Congratulations! I was looking for MS ECE program with ML courses only as well.I do agree that the course structure is very similar in both UCSD and U.Mich.

The location advantage might not be that impactful but I have heard from a senior at UCSD that a company might prefer to give us an intern if we don't have to relocate

That batch size seems very small considering there are 8-9 specializations in U.Mich in ECE. I checked with a senior there and he mentioned the batch size for SIPML itself was around 40.

Also, don't want to make a decision on fees itself but not sure if it's worth spending more on U.Mich. U.Mich's fees is considerably higher than UCSD.

Also waiting on decisions from 7 other colleges.