Damn! Its getting hard to get into Michigan
Just saw this article at the Freep about this year's admissions http://www.freep.com/article/20110715/NEWS06/110714015/University-Michigan-receives-record-number-applications-up-25-from-2010?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s
Just shy of 40,000 applicants this year (up 25% from last year) for a class of 5,900. Only about 40% got admitted and 40% of those admitted matriculated. I fear for my kids when they apply. Better start saving up for out-of-state tuition because I'm not sending them to State.
Hey I lived in a student lounge my freshmen year and it was amazing, I think they should always put kids in those rooms.
Yes, the 40% acceptance rate seems relatively manageable and nowhere near the acceptance rates of some other elite schools/some Ivy Leagues. However, this number is considerably higher due to in-state applicants. It is significantly easier to get in through in-state than out of state. The university still has to let in their in state quota every year despite their charge to be a very culturally diverse school. Thus, they make it very difficult on the out of state applicants to fill the remaining spots so the 40% doesn't truly show the difficulty of getting into the school out of state.
The year I applied, I had a friend from the state of Michigan who got in with a 3.3 GPA and a 24 ACT score. I applied with a 3.8 GPA and 28 ACT and didn't get in (I am from Toledo, OH). Thankfully, I transferred in a year later so I currently am going in to my Junior year!
Additionally, I completely agree with clevermichiganreference that it can be absolutely essential to APPLY EARLY. So get on that James Burrill Angell :)
Those numbers are definitely very comparable to my friend's. Just remember that my friend applied 3 years ago, and it may be even harder now to get in. Also, there is always room to improve so make sure you don't let up your senior year (because I know it is very easy to :) ).
As far as extra curriculars, I think he did a few things but nothing ridiculous. Wish you the best of luck!
I went to Sylvania Southview, so pretty close to Bedford! And no problem
There are kids with 32+ ACT and 3.5+ GPA that are not getting in. Check out college confidential to see the stats and ec's of kids that did not get in to LSA. You will need to be exceptional at something or from the right under represented group to get in
My cousin had a 3.9 and a 32 ACT from a private school in Michigan and didn't get into Michigan Engineering for this upcoming year. He instead decided to accept a full academic ride to Ohio State.
Wow really? I guess the standards have changed even more than I previously thought, especially for the state of Michigan.
I have a friend that graduated in-state 2010 with a 3.7 and a 33 who didn't get in; ended up at MSU with a ton of scholarship money. I'm fine with the inredibly high acceptance rate (for an elite school), but some of the rejection stories I've heard are pretty ridiculous.
I graduated this past spring, and I can attest to the fact that there are tons of intelligent out-of-state kids; I was, however, surprised by the resumes of some of the in-state kids I met throughout my four years. That being said, I would never trade my education at Michigan for any other school in the country. I just want the school to start trending back up in the rankings to where it belongs (top 20 at the very least).
roughly 9-10 college students don't declare or change their major, leaving 1/10 college students know what they want to do, and see that educational plan all the way through. It's almost guaranteed that once a teenage student gets their feet wet at college they start seeing things differently than they did while in high school. It makes a lot of sense to take your general ed classes at a cheaper school with good transfer credits. I went to Macomb and took my Math and Unigraphics before transferring to Kettering. Saved me a ton of money and I didn't have to commit to Kettering as an 18 year old and perhaps regret it or get overwhelmed.
Just for comparison, some academic peers' acceptance rates from last year:
Notre Dame: 29%
Cal: 22%
UCLA: 22%
UVA: 32%
UNC: 32%
Texas: 45%
Michigan is also more expensive (out of state at least) than all those schools save ND (and nearly 50% more than UNC).
I also think you could include Illinois on the above list for engineering students.
You also have to look at the in-state / out-of-state breakdown. Some schools preferentially admit in state students. I went to William and Mary, where it is substantially more difficult to be admitted from out of state (they are required to admit 80% instate students and only 20% out of state, IIRC). Your chances of getting in as a state resident could be substantially better than as an out of state student. Also, FWIW William and Mary admits about 32% of applicants - pretty close to UM.
I know an OSU fan who went to W&M. Are you an attorney?
Nah, was a biomedical engineer but now I teach math.
I expect our numbers to go down because:
1. Our application numbers continue to rise. It was 40,000 this year which is a remarkable single year increase.
2. We'll have to accept few people to fill our class because our retention rate has gone up and we just can't accomodate 6,300 student classes with the current facilities. It's not just dorms, but having the libraries, the classrooms to accomodate those students. We might have the classrooms, but we don't have the library space in my opinion.
Who cares about facilities for students? It's all about the $$$ baby! Mary Sue can't make almost a mil at her part time job with tiny classes of only 5,000!
<br>-Chet
Yeah, 40% is still relatively high. UNC's out of state acceptance rate is around 15%. I had a friend from Michigan who got into Duke but not UNC.
A couple reasons UM doesn't stack up to those schools specifically. They all fall into one or more of these categories:
1. Less expensive for out of staters, therefore more desireable for a large group.
2. In a state with a much larger population than Michigan, resulting in a much larger applicant pool.
3. A smaller school, either somewhat (UCLA, Cal, UNC) or considerably (ND) resulting in fewer acceptances total. If ND accepted the same # as ND did, our acceptance rate would be lower.
4. Located in a desireable part of the country. Kids from lots of places want to go to California, especially LA, because of the weather, et al.
Really? Everyone I've talked to who is UM honors doesn't seem to like it very much. Also admission into honors seems to be random. I know two students who are quite... Unremarkable (ie 3.8 HS gpa, 1300 sat-ish) and are in honors, both struggled their first year at UM even. I wonder why they got into honors but other similar students didn't?
<br>-Chet
Yes, it's much harder to get into now than it was when I was there (late 60s), and it was considered hard even then!
I remember worrying like crazy about whether my kids would get in, and I literally ran over to the piano and played all the Michigan songs each time when their fat envelopes came with their admission stuff (something they rolled their eyes over and thought was incredibly goofy, which it was, but I didn't care because heck, I'm old and crazy for UM).
40% acceptance rate seems like a lot, but very few kids apply with no chance of getting in. So if they want around 5,000 freshmen, they accept 16,000 knowing that a lot of the kids they accept will also get into other elite schools.
Is inflated because it's so much easier to get in in-state than out of state. Out of state, Michigan is very hard to get into, obviously. I'm going into my senior year of HS, and I'm going to be applying out of state. I think my numbers are good enough to get in. I got a 2090 SAT but a 1490/1600 not including writing, a 34 on my ACT, and I have a 4.5 GPA on a 5.0 scale where an A in a AP or HH class is a a 5, an A in an Honors class is 4.5, and a regular class is 4. But we'll see.
I got in out of state with about the same scores on everything. It just depends on your extra-curricular's. If you don't have much or any involvement then that hurts your chances a ton. As long you've been involved in the community (I.e. volunteering, clubs) you're good. Leadership positions help as well.
You'll be fine, I had similar grades and test scores, coming from out of state and this seemed higher than average. Out-of-state can get really interesting with these weird GPAs. I know in my county in Florida, there is no limit to how high it can go. Our valedictorian graduated with a 6.6 GPA, hard to compare that.
This song got in my head. Thanks a lot, OP.
Certainly there is no secret material at a top university that cannot be potentially accessed at other places, such as JUCO, but there is absolutely a competitive difference when it comes to the job market and competitive graduate schools. Your entire record will be combed over fairly easily when you have only 4-yrs after high school on your CV . And if test scores, recommendations, publications, GPA, etc. are similar, the student who spend 4 full years at U-M or other very good school will be viewed much more favorably than one who transferred in.
I have been involved in many hirings, I like doing the interviews. Seriously though, as long as you have a degree that is appropriate and decent grades, the rest is really how well you interview. I really couldn't care less if some kid has a 4.0 vs some kid with a 3.2. If the kid with the 3.2 interviews well, I will hire him everytime. Book work =/ job work.
The book work says you are ready to do the job work, it doesn't mean you will be better at it, it tells me nothing about your personality, it doesn't reflect your ability to work on a team.
Well said. I feel that the book work /= job work point you made is often overlooked. I attended college with people who would get aroused at the sight of their transcripts, yet some of these people had never worked a job in their lives.
That being said, people should certainly take pride in their academic acomplishments. It is also important for people to understand that both academic and work experience create an effective employee.
I once had a company directory tell me that he would much rather have a new employee with a 3.4 and a useful internship than a new employee with a 4.0 and no relevant experience.
So, let's say you get 500 applicants for an entry-level job, but you're only planning to interview 25. About 200 of them have similar internship/co-op experiences. Question I have for you is: How do you pick the 20 to interview? What criteria do you look at?
I say go for it. Just don't mess with the Godmother.
Tell me about it.... Oh well looking back now, I'm really glad I get to go to CMU and wouldn't have it any other way
Damn, first double post, my bad
because they switched to the CommonApp which is a one stop application for a whole bunch of colleges - all it took was writing the essays for Michigan and one could apply - much easier than it has been in the past. that's why more people applied
If you want to be the best, you need a low acceptance rate. Sorry guys but that's just how it is.
Here are the acceptance rates in 2006. 60% was just way too high for a world-class university. Even Notre Dame had an acceptance rate of 30%, which is surely lower now (as it is with all schools). When even the University of Tennessee and Florida have a lower acceptance rate than you, you know something's wrong.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-11-02-collegerates_x.htm
| HARVARD UNIVERSITY | 19,690 | 2,054 | 10.4% |
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | 10,466 | 1,665 | 15.9% |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY | 37,001 | 8,833 | 23.9% |
| CORNELL UNIVERSITY-ENDOWED COLLEGES | 20,822 | 6,130 | 29.4% |
| UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME | 11,490 | 3,488 | 30.4% |
| NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | 34,457 | 12,008 | 34.8% |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO | 43,443 | 16,176 | 37.2% |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | 10,832 | 4,793 | 44.2% |
| UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA | 22,458 | 11,928 | 53.1% |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR | 21,293 | 13,304 |
62.5% |
I agree that Michigan's acceptance rate seems curiously high for a university that sees itself as a peer to the bottom half of the Ivy League, but there's more to the story. For one thing, some of the schools you're comparing Michigan to receive many more applications from unqualified candidates than Michigan does. Many of the higher-ranked University of California campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, et al) have artificially deflated acceptance rates because California has a program in which high school students who graduate in a certain percentile of their class are guaranteed admission somewhere in the UC system. These kids apply to every single one of the UC campuses whether they have a shot or not, even though most of them will probably end up at UC-Santa Cruz or UC-Riverside. Also, tuition at the UCs was (until recently) basically free for California residents, which further increased the number of applications from unqualified candidates. Their application system was also structured such that you only needed to pay a single fee to apply to all of the campuses. Other schools use tricks to lower their acceptance rates and thereby game the rankings (or "juke the stats", as they say on The Wire). NYU is notorious for giving application fee waivers to students who have no chance of being accepted,
This is from 2006. A lot has changed. We're still behind as far as acceptance rate (aroujnd 40%) but with the number of people applying to Michigan and the number of people enrolling, we have to reduce both of those numbers.
California's UC system is:
http://www.ocregister.com/news/tuition-308273-state-hike.html
Oh, God of Inflation and Epic Housing Crashes where art thou...oh there you are!
my experience with community college was taking 2 classes at Muskegon CC after my freshman year and those classes were garbage. they were easy and the professors sucked
this isnt about junior college being weaker than U of M, its about how many people ive seen in my 3 years here who work at restaurants or in retail or as tellers at a bank or in any other shitty job that pays them less than $15 an hour that have a degree from U of M. just because you go here doesnt mean you will be successful, especially if you pick a stupid major. math? good choice. engineering? good choice. business? good choice. but i know people who chose english and now they work retail, i know a guy who chose architecture and spent a year delivering papers (it was explained to me that the be a real architect you must have a masters). michigan is amazing if you choose the right program but don't kid yourselves if you think that a teaching degree, history degree, philosophy degree, ect, from u of m is going to help you out, save some money and go someplace else or spend the first 2 years at a JC
business? waste of time.
unlike other professions where you need a tangible skillset (engineering, cs, hard sciences), you can go into "business" with any degree. top financial firms routinely take the smartest students they can find, not just business admin majors.
Ross has a very strong alumni network that gives its graduates a leg up. Plus, if you know you want to work in finance and you have to major in something, why not major in business?
Somewhat agree. I have a bachelor's of science from Michigan. Two and a half years ago I started my own business, and I'm not suffering for lack of a business degree. Does make me scratch my head a little and wonder what the BBA and MBA folks know that I don't. Must be somethin'.
That being said, a business degree from Michigan isn't a waste of time if you've got a plan. Don't think you're gonna be Stephen Ross just because you've got a Michigan business degree, or any degree for that matter. Have a plan, work hard, and maybe a little bit of luck... that's what it takes.
I've hired mostly business degrees, I'm not hiring someone with a degree in English or Engineering for a Marketing position unless they have experience
I have a teaching degree from UM (in math) and had four offers within 2 weeks after my program. Two out of state, two in state.
I accepted a position that pays considerably more than most first-year teaching positions.
The UM School of Education is a great school - not really comparable to a history or english degree from LSA. Now of course, this depends on your specific program and your hirability (i was math; some of my english and social studies peers are still looking for jobs).
In the end, a Michigan degree always makes a positive difference - for the position I accepted I interviewed with 5 or 6 people, three of them had Michigan ties. But what got me the job wasn't my GPA or the simple fact I went to UM, it was the other stuff I brought to the table.
If your only positive is you go to Michigan, then that might get you an interview but that could be the end of it. It gets you in the door. You still gotta show them you're the best person for the job still.
Agreed. Teaching is a valuable degree because it teaches a professional skillset (unlike philosophy, english, and some of the others that were mentioned) that will always be in demand. U-M's School of Education is among the best.
Nonsense.
The fact is that a Michigan degree means something to a lot of people.
One of my daughters got a degree in theater, was accepted - with scholarship offers - to 5 law schools, and went on to get her law degree.
My other daughter is degreed from from UM's Nursing School, and got absolutely choice hospital offers, working at Children's Hospital Philly (the best children's hospital in the US, affiliated with University of Pennsylvania). She is an ICU recovery specialist.
My son got a degree from UM's music program, and his first gig out of school was being selected as a recording engineer for the well-known producer Flood (U2, smashing pumpkins, Depeche Mode, many others), on the #1 30 Seconds to Mars record that was released this past year. There were lots of applicants, and the production team told him that his UM degree and resume was why he got the interview.
Sure, for some degrees, going on to grad school is the way to get ahead. I've got news for you - it's always been that way.