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You can see I'm one of the few people that still reply in this thread, but I haven't lived in Ann Arbor since 2018. I can tell you when I was living there that $1400 for a bdrm/2bath in Ypsi sounds way high, though I guess prices may have gone up since covid. I lived in Ypsi most my time there and I was usually paying $600-800 for a 2bdrm/2bath. Coming to the Midwest from west and east coast it is an entirely different COL. I would have to pay about $2500+ here in San Diego now to get a comparable apartment I had in Ypsi. Though of course grad stipends/wages similarly reflect that and you won't be making a lot of money either. And no, it isn't too early to start looking because A2/Ypsi is a college town so most apartment leases start in the Fall. Now through the summer will be the time most people are hunting, though of course there's going to be lots of landlords that don't know the status of the current tenants. Still it is a good idea to make contact, get on waiting lists, etc. now and as summer comes availabilities will open up quickly. You can get away without needing a car in either A2 or Ypsi if you don't mind using the bus and you don't feel the need to leave the area often. But yeah most non-undergrads end up having a car out there. Doesn't really matter where you buy one, you can always wait to move out there and see how badly you need one.

Hey there, I don't still live in Ann Arbor (not since 2018) and I don't come to this site much, but I do still have notification updates for activity on this thread. I highly recommend scrolling up a bit and reading my posts on this exact subject, particularly this post. Everything I said there still stands. I spent most my life in LA, Boston, and now San Diego, and I miss Ann Arbor now more than ever. I am jealous of people that get to move there and experience that lifestyle for the first time. Please take some time to read through my posts on this subject and I can't stress enough that your attitude absolutely shapes your experience. Be open-minded and you might be surprised with the outcome. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll do my best to help.

Just a heads up that in my experience Master's students are typically NOT funded at most schools. PhD students are nearly always funded, but Masters students are usually not, but depending on the school, there can be opportunities for Masters students to try and source funding themselves by doing things like teaching, research for a lab, work study, etc. So just be aware that getting a Masters tends to be an expensive affair regardless of going through LEAP or not. Though BU is obviously on the most expensive side of the scale given its tuition cost and cost of living in Boston. Everything @AustinChemical said is spot on. Basically, complete as much as you can outside of BU and spend the least amount of semesters/time as you can enrolled at BU. It has been a while since I graduated (2012), but I remember lots of gotchas in dealing with funding. For instance, I remember that it was required to be enrolled and be a paying student in order to officially graduate. So even though I was doing independent research work in a lab for my MS thesis and not enrolled in any coursework (I was already done with that), I still had to pay quite a bit of money in order to be officially enrolled just to turn my thesis in and say I graduated. The best advice is to just consider long and hard if a Masters in an engineering program is exactly what you will need to reach your career goals. If there are other cheaper routes that could be possible, spend time looking into those too. For me, I really wanted to get a PhD in biomedical engineering and there was nearly no possible way with my background and GPA that I could have gotten into a good PhD program without LEAP. So I sucked it up and took on nearly 6 figures of LEAP debt in order to do it, and in the end it worked out, I made it to a good PhD program, and now I'm in a career doing everything I had always dreamed of and more. I'm still paying a boatload of money each month (near $1k) to pay off all that debt, but it is what it is and I wouldn't have changed the path I took.

A fellow bruin! That was my alma mater before doing the BU LEAP program. Good luck!

I actually think those months are very doable to find temporary housing because there are a ton of summer sublets available. You could always do something like that while you lock down more permanent options. If you are flexible with where you live and especially if you are open to Ypsi I found there were lots of housing options available. And I don't think you need to get too nervous at this point. This is about the time that current residents in apartments are deciding if they are going to stay for the next year or not. I know when I moved around to different apartment complexes I would usually find places around this time of year, turn in applications, put a deposit down, and then be told I have a spot in the complex, but they didn't know where yet. They would have to wait til mid summer to let me know the exact unit I would get based on who is moving out. That pattern happened in like 3 different places I moved to so don't be surprised if you go through something similar.

I really think you guys are unnecessarily stressing out about being disappointed with Ann Arbor. before you even giving it a chance I can honestly tell you that throughout my time there and since I have talked to literally hundreds of people that have spent time living in Ann Arbor and not once have I heard anyone say they were miserable and regretted being there. That's not exaggeration. Though I have heard people regret their time at my other universities, UCLA and Boston University, two cities which many people are excited to be in. Yes, rent near the university is priced relatively high in comparison to surrounding neighborhoods. But keep in mind those "higher" prices are still way below the prices you would pay in any major city. The rent in downtown Ann Arbor is literally about half of what I paid in LA, Boston, and now in San Diego. It is all relative. And like everything else in life, you have to make compromises. If you want to live in downtown you get the benefit of walking to campus and downtown, but at the expense of not being by any major grocery stores and paying higher rent. If you prioritize low cost and being closer to bigger chain stores, than living in the surrounding neighborhoods is the better choice. But that also doesn't mean you can't make it work living in downtown without a car. I would say most people living in downtown go without a car and do just fine. I spent some time living in Kerrytown myself and while I owned a car, I never drove it day to day. Regarding groceries, I shopped a lot at Kerrytown farmer's market on Saturdays for produce, and then for other stuff I would often go to the Kerrytown Market or the People's Co-op. Both will be a little more expensive than a large chain store like Kroger or Meijer, but you are paying for the convenience of a small, local market. They will have all of the common grocery items you would want. But if you want to do bulk shopping at Kroger or Meijer, you can easily sign up for zipcar and rent out cars by the hour, use Uber/Lyft (very plentiful), or take the bus. Both the city bus and the blue bus are free for students. The blue bus even has convenient stops in downtown that go to North Campus and drop you off across the street from the Kroger on Plymouth. That's probably about a 15 minute bus ride. Super easy. Also, if you are into cycling at all I would highly recommend getting a bike. Ann Arbor is a great cycling town and it is easy to bike around and get to the grocery stores as well. I know people that cycled all throughout the winter time too. If you decide you want to prioritize saving money and being closer to chain stores, I highly recommend looking at Ypsilanti area off Washtenaw or the Old West Side area off Jackson and Maple. I lived in both those areas and both have really easy bus access to campus and both have really easy access to a Kroger. Ypsi even has easy access to Whole Foods and Trader Joes. Both are about a 20-30 min bus ride to campus depending on where you are exactly. I know the bus doesn't sound as appealing as walking to campus, but there are pros and cons. The major pro of the bus is that during the wintertime I would rather sit on a heated bus for 30 min than walk for 15 min outside while it is snowing and windy. If you aren't familiar with Ann Arbor's winter, there will typically be snow on the ground from November to April, nearly half the year. So consider that as well. Bottom line, it is really easy to make Ann Arbor fit your desired living situation. If you want to be downtown, there are plenty of options for getting around and you can easily be fine without a car. There's a ton of nightlife and restaurant options and I would argue that one of the best parts of living out there is taking advantage of all the good restaurants and nightlife. But if you are in a low income situation and want to save money, you don't have to live in downtown. The surrounding neighborhoods are also great and have lots to offer. And again, if you are willing to take the bus, ride a bike, catch an Uber/Lyft, you can still get by without a car if that is important to you. Also, keep in mind that Ann Arbor is very small. So when you are zoomed in on Google Maps worrying out about how "far" grocery stores are, really consider the actual distance. Most people would consider the Old West Side area to be the western border of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti would represent the eastern border. The distance from Old West Side to Ypsilanti is about 5 miles. That's it. You could literally bike from border to border in like 20 min. And UMich campus falls right in the middle of the two, so you are talking about being 2-3 miles away from campus if you are living outside of downtown. That scale is entirely different than what you are used to in Berlin.

Congrats on getting into UMich and starting your new journey. I just finished my PhD there last August and was living there for 6 years so I feel like I am in a good position to offer some words of advice. I have no idea your gender/age so you may or may not be able to relate to me, but I am a 35 year old male. I grew up in California and have mostly lived in big cities. Most notably I lived in LA for 8 years before moving to Boston to do my Masters for 3 years, and then Ann Arbor after that. I currently live in San Diego. So I do consider myself a big city person and I never pictured myself living in a small midwestern town before considering Ann Arbor. I'll detail more answers below, but I'll give you the conclusions right now. I absolutely loved my time in Ann Arbor and I miss it already. Now, I will say that I am not sure I could live in Ann Arbor for the rest of my life, particularly because of my industry, and also because my friends family are mostly in California, but honestly if I was absolutely forced to live there forever, I could make it work and live a happy and fulfilling life. Living there for 6 years was the right amount of time for me and I thoroughly enjoyed my entire experience there. Now, the most important words of advice I can give you are "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". What I mean by this is you have to accept that Ann Arbor will in no way compare to the big city offerings (e.g. restaurants, clubs, bars, number of stores, number of events, etc) of London, Toronto, or NYC. And don't let any locals try to convince you otherwise. BUT, you may learn that isn't a negative thing. By giving up the sheer number of offerings of big cities, you gain a ton in other lifestyle options that may or may not be more important to you. So going back to the "When in Rome" phrase, I am a firm believer that if you are open-minded and willing to adapt to your new home, you can learn to love it in a different way than your past homes, and you might end up loving it just as much if not more. But that is completely on you and your attitude. The worst thing you can do is spend all your time dwelling on all the big city things you are "missing" when you are there. That is a nasty trap. I fell for it the first time I made my big move from LA to Boston and it hindered me from embracing my new city because I just kept making comparisons. Once I gave that up and stopped comparing, I learned to embrace the differences and figure out why those differences don't have to be negative. That completely shaped my attitude which then shaped my experiences. I didn't make that same mistake when I moved to Ann Arbor. Instead, I immediately got there and tried to figure out what lifestyle changes made Ann Arbor so special and then adapted those into my experiences. I really want to emphasize the importance of this paragraph because I can already tell from your post that you are fighting against what Ann Arbor doesn't have instead of realizing what new things you will learn. For me, what I came to love about Ann Arbor was the small town charm. I never understood that before living there. I always thought I needed a big city with endless options to be happy. Well I found out I don't. I learned that giving up billions of options meant I got to focus on smaller number of things, but in a much deeper way and with much richer quality. An example of this is the weekly Kerrytown Farmer's Market. It is a wonderful Farmer's Market and because of the smaller size town, it means that a high percentage of people attend. That means you get to run into familiar faces often, catch up with people you haven't talked to for a bit, and build relationships with a community. I used to make it a habit of stopping into the Kerrytown grocery store that has a sandwich shop and the cook there is amazing. I would just chat with him while he was cooking my food and it became a regular thing such that we would talk about travels, music, whatever. Those random relationships are easy to build in a small community that I never appreciated before. Similarly, things like bars and restaurants become more personal. In big cities you have so many choices that you tend to make a huge list of all the restaurants you want to check out, which is a ton of fun for sure, but at the same time it often means you never go back to the same places (even if you loved the food) because you have so many other places on your list to get to. I'm a foodie and I'm guilty of this. But in Ann Arbor you have fewer options, and that gives you the opportunity to make a spot your own. You will develop your own favorites, go there regularly, try more things on the menu, argue with your friends why this spot is special to you, etc. Like you have a deeper connection with a place and it means more to you. There is a wonderful charm in that. There's also the benefits of not needing reservations for places and not having to wait an hour to sit down. You can literally call your friends for a casual dinner and everyone can get into town within 15 minutes (whether by bus, car, or walk) and go straight into a restaurant and get seated. The other thing that really awakened new experiences for me was the nature aspect. I noticed you didn't mention this in your post, and I didn't think that much about it previously either. But if you have lived in cities your entire life, I urge you to spend some time tracing your roots back to nature. Ann Arbor is simply beautiful. It is littered with parks and an awesome river that flows through the middle of it. There are little trails all along this river and you can spend hours getting lost in serene places while rarely running into other humans. You will probably encounter more deer in these areas then you will people. I picked up both trail running and mountain biking because of this. And then I got into road cycling because you can actually ride on quiet country roads across miles of farmland with very light car traffic. And what is great about these things is that they aren't a destination that you have to plan for. These places are right outside your door. You can be outside and in the heart of nature within a few blocks of campus. And if you really want to experience the joy of real wilderness, take a trip to the Upper Peninsula. That area is one of my absolute favorite places in the country. It is so remote and a place you would never really visit unless you lived in Michigan. And again, I wasn't necessarily a huge nature person before getting to Ann Arbor, but that is a big part of the lifestyle and something so easy to embrace when there. Finally, I'll leave you with some practical and logistical words of advice. Yes, you can live in Ann Arbor without a car. Personally, I always owned a car because I like the freedom of getting out on a whim and I just love traveling around, but I did keep my daily driving to a minimum. If you go sans car, opt to live as close to campus as you can afford. Living in walking distance will really make your day to day life easier, particularly in the winter time. The bus system is actually pretty decent, but it doesn't run super late and they become fairly infrequent (like once an hour or half hour) once you get to early evening. Also, living nearby downtown will just make your social life easier since you won't know anyone when you move there. And once winter comes it gets so much harder to motivate yourself to go out and do things if you are living further away, don't have a car, and have to rely on standing outside in the bitter cold for a bus to arrive. And I know you mentioned not caring about sports. But I advise you to ponder that a bit and consider why you don't like sports. Just because it was never your thing before doesn't mean it can never become a part of your life if you are open-minded. Part of the fun of being at UMich is school spirit. Would your interest be different if all your friends were into sports and going to games? Have you ever thought about the social aspect of it? There are lots of people that don't necessarily care about the team itself, but there is a lot of fun in just hanging out with friends in a lively environment while day drinking and laughing. I just advise that you don't automatically write off sports when you are there. It is undoubtedly a part of the lifestyle of UMich and it might mean more to you when you are there and feel a sense of community around it. See if there's an aspect of it that you can get into. As far as social stuff, yes there are places to dance. There are clubs that do have "club" type of dancing. But there's also salsa and swing clubs as well if you really want to do more serious dancing. And yes, there are plenty of vegetarian options. A lot of my best friends at UMich were vegetarian. There is a pretty big farm-to-table scene there and a lot of emphasis on fresh foods. Ann Arbor can be quite hipsterish so you won't have a hard time finding good food, coffee, and drinks. There won't be a dozen Indian restaurants or anything, but there will be a handful, and the best ones (Cardamom) won't be far off the best ones you can find in big cities. And yes, there are plenty of bars that are not just sports bars. Check out The Last Word or The Ravens Club. There is also a really vibrant art scene there. Google Ann Arbor Art Fair. That fair is on par with many big city art fairs. Also, look into UMich's "Passport to the arts" program. As a student you will be able to pick up free tickets to many different art performances, movies, musicals, etc. Check out UMich's School of Music, Theater, and Dance calendar. Look at how many events are free. You can literally walk in and sit down on a live performance without any tickets or anything. And these things are going on a daily basis, right in the heart of campus. For bigger and more professional performances, check out UMS as there are lots of famous performers that come through (e.g. Yo-yo Ma) and there are discounted student tickets available for most shows. Hopefully that reply helps settle your anxiety a bit. Again, just be open-minded and you will be fine. I tried to give more general outlook advice here, but if you have more questions or want more specific names of places you can shoot me a message. Best of luck on your upcoming journey!

This is good advice. The reason BU's LEAP program initially gained popularity in the mid 2000's is because it was pretty much the only option for non-engineers to get into an engineering Masters program. The kicker was that nearly every person received substantial scholarship, I believe I had around 75% scholarship when I started. So the cost of attending was on par or even cheaper than attending a public university. Also, at that time BU's grad BME rank was like #7 or something in US News and World Report so it was prestigious, almost fully funded, and located in a cool city. I haven't kept up with LEAP recently but even by the end of my time there things drastically changed (e.g. firing of Helaine was a massive hit) and they made a huge cutback in funding. I basically stopped recommending it to people. Bottom line is that there are most likely many ways of achieving your end goal and everyone should really explore all options available. If attending LEAP is the best fit, I would recommend at least completing every possible pre-requisite course you can at a local community college to save money and then just do the last of the courses through LEAP. But if you can find other programs that are open to accepting non-engineering undergrads, look into those too. Some engineering disciplines are more flexible about this. BME is often pretty flexible with what undergrad majors they accept. But say electrical engineering might not be as flexible.

Hi everyone! I've been subscribed to this thread since the very start of it (2011) and figured I would just share a "success" story for those of you getting ready to start the LEAP program or thinking about it. I started LEAP in Fall 2009, basically during its inception phase. I started as BME, switched to ECE and got my MS in Summer 2012. Coursework took me less than 2 years, but I spent the last full year working on a very intensive thesis project (I ended up getting a first author publication from it) while I was also applying for PhD programs. I then went on to University of Michigan for my BME PhD. The LEAP program was instrumental in my journey to getting to the PhD. UMich is maybe not well known around here, but it is usually considered a top 5 engineering grad school so that was a big deal for me and really speaks more about how important LEAP was for me, rather than my own abilities. There's just no way I would have gotten that far on my own without having done LEAP. Anyways, I just graduated from UMich this last summer and had an awesome experience. I am now living in San Diego working for a neurotech startup company that is the dream job I had envisioned when I first made the choice to apply to LEAP. It took 9 years of grad school, but I made it and had a blast the entire way. I'm not posting to toot my own horn, but I thought it would be nice for new or current LEAPers to at least hear what happens after LEAP and get some type of confirmation that all the money and time put into it will pay off. I have of course met and maintained friendships with a number of LEAP people throughout the years and I can tell you that everyone is doing well for themselves. The directions people chose after LEAP varied significantly, some went into more grad school like myself, many went into industry jobs, some went into consulting, some went to med school, and some didn't even do anything with engineering. But everyone I know that finished seems to be happy with wherever they ended up. Anyways, I've been out of touch with the current LEAP program, but I am happy to answer any questions or provide any advice. If there's anything general that could be helpful to many people I'll try and keep up with the thread and respond here. Otherwise, people are welcome to message me directly with more personal/specific questions. Good luck to you all!

Hi everyone, In case anyone is moving to Ann Arbor around January and is looking for a place, I am searching for a new roommate and leasing terms are pretty flexible. I am in Ypsilanti, just adjacent to Ann Arbor, but it is only about a 15 minute drive to campus and rent is cheap. Here is my craigslist ad with details. Message me if you are interested. https://annarbor.craigslist.org/roo/d/looking-for-roommate-or/6372941759.html

Welcome newcomers! For those seeking housing advice, I would highly recommend checking out the Ann Arbor city thread forum. I, as well as many others, across many years have been giving lots of housing advice and not much has changed over the years so old advice is almost certainly still relevant. We even just had a discussion about the pros/cons of living in graduate housing (Northwood) not too long ago.

It sucks, but in my personal experience (as well as others) from going through this process a handful of times at this point in the game if you haven't heard anything at all from a university it is probably 95% of the time a rejection. During my last application season (2012) I applied to UPenn and to this day I have never been told I was rejected haha. I believe UCLA might have been the same. Kinda sucks that universities are happy to take your application fee but can't be bothered to let you know you weren't accepted. So yeah, in short, don't hold out for the places you haven't heard a word from, assume rejection, and move on to your other options. Unless you have external funding like NSF, then go crazy telling all your applied to universities and I am sure they will have no problems changing their minds.

This is pretty much my same sentiment which I tried to convey in my previous post. Central (and moreso downtown Ann Arbor) is undeniably a better area/lifestyle than North so most people that are based on Central wouldn't choose Northwood/North Campus housing, such as myself. Really, the only people I know that choose to live in Northwood that aren't North Campus majors are people with families, because Northwood has a really nice family community that I know many people appreciate if that is your situation.

I actually posted a decent amount about housing recommendations in this thread a while ago. I recommend going through my old posts or reading the earlier pages in this forum for more detailed info. I haven't personally lived in Northwood, but I have had many friends, classmates, and co-workers that have. From my experience, everyone has been generally happy living there. The pricing is reasonable for what it is and how close to campus you are. If I worked on North Campus I would move there in a heartbeat. For Central, it isn't bad by any means. The UMich blue bus systems is good, not amazing, but good. Buses run frequently, but it also depends on where you want to go. And while they do continuously run, the scheduled time isn't usually that accurate. However, there is a live tracking system so that helps. My only real complaint about the blue buses are they can fill up around typical "rush hour" times. But if you avoid those times, they are fine. Now if you are going to be based on Central Campus, I think it is worth investigating other places. Again, Northwood is fine, but I personally think there is better. If you are going to pick a place sight unseen, most of the large apartment complexes here are well reviewed on apartment ratings websites. When I first moved here, I picked Spicetree Apartments based on ratings and I lived there for 3 years with no problems. I now live in a McKinley (huge chain of complexes all over town) apartment, and recommend them as well.

I haven't been on this site in years but was just randomly browsing this thread, UMich already had the first interview session last week and is having the smaller, second one during the 2nd week of March. If you haven't heard anything from them yet, you are are most likely getting rejected. However, if you end up getting your own funding (e.g. NSF) after being rejected (from any school), I HIGHLY recommend you go back to those schools and see if they will change their mind. I've seen that work out multiple times here at UMich and assume it happens a lot at other schools as well. Also, if you were in personal talks with any profs up to this point, it doesn't hurt to check-in with them after all the admits make their decisions. If the prof didn't get their target students and has money and still really wants you, it isn't hard for them to get your rejection overturned...that happened with me a while back (you can probably find a past post of mine about it). Anyways, if anyone here gets accepted and is considering UMich and wants to know anything about the school/city, feel free to shoot me a message. I've been in the program for almost 5 years now. Good luck!