Applying for Ross after Freshman year

<p>What are the chances of getting in to Ross school of business after freshman year at U Mich? I was accepted to the College of Engineering, and will probably go to Michigan with that as my intended major. SPECIFICS for Ross admissions would be great! Thanks.</p>

<p>To get into Ross you are going to probably want over a 3.6 GPA. Might be more lenient since you’ll be an engineer, but a 3.6 is generally considered safe. You are also going to want to demostrate leadership/results in a few extracurriculars, and be able to write good essays. Odds are not great, but a ton of not-so-qualified people apply.</p>

<p>Obviously shooting for well beyond a 3.6 is ideal, but a big portion is your extracurricular involvement and essays, once good grades are present.</p>

<p>That’s pretty helpful, thanks. If anyone else has additions or modifications to that, that’d be great.</p>

<p>where could a freshman find opportunities for “leadership”. I mean aren’t most clubs operated by upperclassmen…</p>

<p>They are. By leadership, I don’t necessarily mean a title. Try to join a business-related extracurricular activity in which there are opportunities for responsibility of some sort, such as heading up a certain project/task that you can spin into sounding like leadership/initiative and that can produce (ideally quantifiable) results. Drawing from personal experience, you can find such opportunities within a fraternity. Actually, in my house freshmen are eligible to run for one or two exec board positions. But a more reliable route to take within our house would be to join an executive board member’s cabinet and head up a task/project under that officer (you can even give yourself an important sounding title, lol). </p>

<p>I recommend checking out as many extracurricular opportunities that catch your interest (even slightly) and speaking with current members. I forget what it’s called (only went to this thing once, freshman year), but there’s a day during the fall where basically every club posts up a booth on the diag advertising who they are and what they do, essentially trying to recruit members. Spend a day between classes walking up to booths and ask the representing members what their club is about, what kind of stuff they do, and whether there are opportunities for initiative/planning/leadership, and whether those opportunities are attractive to you.</p>

<p>I can’t overemphasize how very important it is to have extracurricular/community service experience to reference in your application. Don’t get lazy and just casually join 1 or 2 clubs. You have to hit the ground running once you get to Michigan. Make sure you are ON TOP OF YOUR CLASSES and you manage your time well so you can find time to first JOIN then PARTICIPATE in extracurrics. Ideally you want to join 2 to 3 to which you can solidly contribute and spin into sounding leadershippy in your essays. On top of good grades (3.6+) you should be in good shape for Ross. Aim for a 4.0 of course to be safe, but I’d rather have a 3.7 and 2 solid extracurrics over a 4.0 and no extracurrics a thousand times over. What separates the acceptances from the rejections are those who have the total package (grades + activities + being able to pump up extracurricular accomplishments in essays… and of course there’s always ********ting!).</p>