I come from a Michigan-obsessed family and I will be crushed if I don’t get in. I included BU because that’s the only other school I’m waiting to hear from.
White OOS female
Major/Interest: Biology/Pre-med track
SAT: 2140 (CR 640 / W 730 / M 770)
ACT: 32 (E 35 / M 30 / R 34 / S 28 / W 10/12)
GPA: 3.7/4 (92%) W — by far the biggest problem with my app. Got a bad grade in an honors math class and dropped halfway through. Did much better afterwards but still ended with a high C, the only C on my transcript. My school doesn’t do UW gpas due to its competitiveness.
Senior year classes:
AP Literature & Composition
AP Environmental Science
AP Government & Politics
AP Spanish 6
Calculus
Took AP & Honors classes throughout sophomore and junior year.
Not submitting the scores.
Extracurriculars:
Volunteer Emergency Medical Technician for three years — equates to over 900 hours of community service.
Leader of all high school level EMTs ages 16-18 for 9 months, elected by president of the EMS squad.
Spent one summer voluntarily co-intstructing my old EMT class
JV soccer captain during freshman year
Three year Varsity starter
Played for a nationally ranked soccer team (top ten in country), won two state championships and multiple northeastern tournaments
Varsity Track & field during freshman, sophomore, & senior year
Member of NHS — won winter community service award for most community service hours
Member of sexual education and advocacy club/organization — 200 hours of community service — 20 NJ seniors who travel to middle/high schools and juvenile detention centers to talk about pregnancy prevention, HIV/AIDS, dating violence, etc.
Shadowed a plastic surgeon over the summer
Hook?
My dad attended U-M’s business school.
Essays:
Wrote about why I became an EMT/my passion for helping people/interest in medicine. I think it was a pretty solid and genuine essay. I also wrote about volunteering for the sex ed. club and becoming an advocate for the LGBTQ community.
For my “Why Michigan?” essay, I wrote about my interest in doing research and contributing to the U-M community, as well as my interest in attending an academically rigorous yet prideful/spirited school. I concluded by talking about my personal connection to the school, as my dad is an alum and die-hard michigan fan (he plays the fight song during long car rides with my family and still receives michigan apparel from my mom every christmas. We have a giant - at least 8x8ft - poster of the big house in my basement, among many other posters and jerseys hanging on the walls in my house. I could go on but that would take a while. Michigan has always been a huge part of my both my childhood and family life in general and I do not want to picture myself attending any other school. I talked briefly about all of this in my essay but made sure to convey how important U-M is to my family and how I would love to continue the legacy.
I applied Regular Decision because my school’s acceptance history showed that the average accepted RD applicant’s GPA was lower than that of an EA applicant’s. Additionally, I wanted to take the ACT and had to wait until after the EA deadline.
My school’s acceptance history also showed that people with my GPA and test scores have been both accepted and waitlisted. I honestly have no idea what is going to happen so I’m looking for some sort of guidance.
I keep trying to rationalize the bad parts of my application with other aspects that might help me out, like the bad math grade vs the good math section on my SAT, and the low CR section on my SAT vs the good ACT reading/english sections. I really hope admissions officers can overlook my sub-par GPA but who knows.
I emailed my state rep. and told her that Michigan is my #1 and I will 100% attend if I get in, but I talked to a Michigan support lady via the live chat and she said that that information didn’t appear on my file, however it is possible that my state rep. just passed that info onto other admissions officers.
This was an extremely rambly post and I apologize for that. Clearly I am very nervous about receiving my decision and I want to be optimistic but I also don’t want to get my hopes up.
Thoughts?