Chance Me

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
1

I just finished my junior year of high school and am going to be applying to college in the fall. I am very interested in the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, specifically the College of Nursing. I am an in-state student and was wondering if anybody could tell me my chances of getting in?

Freshman year:
Chinese 2 (took Chinese 1 in 8th grade)
Biology
English
Geometry
Healthy Life Habits
American History

Sophomore Year:
Honors English
Chinese 3
World History
Algebra 2
Ceramics/Fundamentals of Art
Analytical Chemistry

(Freshmen and Sophomores can’t take AP classes at my school)

Junior Year:
AP Chem
AP Macroeconomics
Precalc
Chinese 4
Physics
Government
20th Century Perspectives (literature class)

Senior Year:
AP Biology
AP Statistics
Anatomy and Physiology
Psychology
World Literature
Yearbook

Unweighted GPA: 3.85
Weighted GPA: 3.95
ACT: 30
SAT: 1290, retook in June and am waiting on score but pretty sure I did much better (1400+) I studied for it a lot.

Extra Curriculars:
•National Honor Society junior and senior year
•Varsity cheerleading for 2 years
•Travel softball for 9 years
•Volunteer at University of Michigan hospital over the summer
•Leadership intern at Camp Invention (stem based science camp for elementary age students)
•Leader at my church’s vacation bible school

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated!

2

I’d suggest going to the U. Michigan portion of CC and search for posts where people who applied for nursing had posted their admission stats in recent years. You can do a search on this site or on google. Here’s an example of what I found in a quick search:

12-21-2016
B]Decision: Accepted School of Nursing**
SAT I (breakdown): 1860 on old SAT (600m,630cr, 630w), 1330 on new SAT (670m, 680w)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.75
Weighted GPA: 3.95
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 37/477
AP (place score in parenthesis): World History (3), Bio (3), Lang and Comp (3), Stats (2), Micro(1)
Senior Year Course Load: APUSH, College Writing, Health Internship, Genetics, AVID Tutoring, special needs tutoring
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Swimming 4 yr varsity and captain, Student government (elected senior class senator)
Job/Work Experience: Lifeguard/Lesson instructor at local pool
Volunteer/Community service: volunteer at a free medical clinic
Summer Activities: Attended NSLC for medicine and health care at UC Berkeley
Essays (rating 1-10, details): 8/9
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): 10, had my middle school english teacher/tutor through high school write me a letter of rec, he said it was really good but i haven’t read it yet.

Teacher Rec #1 (rating 1-10, details): 10, see above
Teacher Rec #2 (rating 1-10, details): n/a
Counselor Rec (rating 1-10, details): 10
Additional Rec (if any) (rating 1-10, details):
Interview (if any) (rating 1-10, details):

Applied for Financial Aid?: nope
Intended Major: Nursing
State (if domestic applicant): Oregon
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: public
Ethnicity: white
Gender: female
Income Bracket: middle/high class
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Legacy

Reflections:
Strengths: Letters of rec, essays, extra curriculars
Weaknesses: Test scores and GPA
Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: honestly no clue… Im shocked!!
Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Accepted to university of Pittsburgh and waiting on UNC and UVA

3

Here’s another example: 12-20-2017 at 4:28 pm edited December 2017
Name of University of Michigan school you are applying to and major:
School of Nursing - ACCEPTED in state

SAT I (breakdown): 750 Math, 660 Reading, 1400 but 1410 SS, essay: 6 6 6
ACT (breakdown): 32C 33E 32M 30R 32S 10/12 on essay
SAT II: didn’t take
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9, 4.02 W
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 30/584 i think
AP (place score in parenthesis): not good lol Chemistry(2), world history(3), us history (3), english comp(3), statistics(4)
IB (place score in parenthesis): n/a
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Bio, AP Computer Science, AP Spanish, english 12, med health
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): AP scholar idk what else

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Student council (leadership role), Key club, NHS, Spanish NHS, Spanish Club, Piano, ukulele, track
Job/Work Experience: none
Volunteer/Community service: volunteer at church occasionally, key club and NHS stuff
Summer Activities: none
Essays: I thought they were good I guess but I didn’t have anyone read them. For the why umich essay i messed it up; I only mentioned why I wanted to be a Nurse Practitioner or Anesthetist but oh well
Teacher Recommendation: we waived our rights to read rec letters so idk. But I only submitted one
Counselor Rec: ^^
Additional Rec:^^
Interview: n/a
Other

Applying for Financial Aid?: yes
State (if domestic applicant): michigan
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: 250k+
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): numerous relatives have gone here, one currently goes to umich.

I know my stats seem a little low, but I go to a magnet program where approx. 25% of the kids in each grade attend umich every year. Out of about 60-70 kids that applied last year from this program, only 2 got deferred and the rest accepted.

4

Thank you!

5

I think that in general your stats are a little low, especially with only having 4 AP classes total by graduation. Your ACT is below the 25% and your UW GPA is just under the average. MI does not care about weighted GPA - they recalculate it with their own formula. If you get a much higher score on the SAT retake, submit that score only. Being in-state helps. You did not mention your class rank/percentage. The full statistics for the class entering this fall have not been released (with statistics showing the difference between in-state and OOS), but you can see the snapshot on the admissions website, which was just posted a few days ago.

I think that your extracurriculars are also a little generic. If you continue to volunteer at the hospital make sure you accumulate as many hours as you can and emphasize that. Do you have any awards/honors to go along with your activities?

You did not mention if you were an URM - that would help you alot - or if you are in an underrepresented (rural) area. That would also help. First generation student? or another hook?

6

In any case, apply to multiple colleges, because nursing is typically the most difficult major for admission at many universities. For nursing, you should also apply as early as practical to most colleges, because many programs fill up in the first few months of the fall.

7

I plan on applying early action and I am a first generation college student if that helps. I forgot to mention that I am in the top 10% of my class. Michigan is my dream school, and I plan on emphasizing that in my essays.

8

@wmc656 Michigan is everyone’s dream school that is applying. The reader knows that and it gets boring quickly. Others will disagree with me on this also. My son never stated he had to go to Michigan in essays or any other school. But he did stress he wanted to be with other academic, intellectual and curious students in a challenging atmosphere. He wanted peer to peer education and challenges. He knows he can go to a lesser school but wanted to be pushed to be his best. There is no question you can see yourself learning and becoming involved in the school community right?
Also maybe look up in the syllabus about your interests to study. Picking out a class/subject /event that excites you, this shows you took the time to research this school. My son also had meetings with the heads of certain departments and was able to reference this in the essay. You can do the same in an email for those that are not close to Michigan.

All of this makes you more interesting and that is the key. How many “if I don’t go to Michigan I will die” statements do you think they read in a single day!!! Yes… Alot…

9

To add on to the statistics: based on an article on mlive.com back in May:

65684 applications total with 15400 acceptances = 23% overall (add a little more due to waiting list acceptances)

instate 12521 applications (another new high) with 5141 acceptances = 41%

out of state then 53163 applications with 10259 accepted - 19%

These numbers will change very slightly once the waiting list is closed.

10

@knowstuff - MI was not my son’s “dream” school (that was Stanford lol - even though he never even visisted). However, I agree with you about being careful what you put about schools in your essays. It’s definitely better to research the school (and it’s so easy nowadays with the web) and pick out SPECIFIC aspects of the school that are appealing and/or a good fit for your goals. For instance, my DS, for one of his schools (not MI) researched the musical clubs/organizations and found an a capella group that he really liked and talked about joining that. There could also be a specific academic program within a college, or a research opportunity like UROP, etc. that shows that an applicant has taken the time to explore what the college has to offer instead of just relying on reputation.

So for the OP - if she did volunteer work at MI, then I recommend that she continue with that and talk about the experience and how it’s affected her decision to go into nursing, and specifically at UM.

Also to the OP - I saw your other post asking about volunteer experience. I don’t know the specific answer to that for nursing, although for other pre-health majors it can be very valuable. You have to have some justification for wanting to be a nurse. Just remember that there is a difference between volunteer work and leadership and extracurriculars, although they can overlap. I would not consider cheer as a leadership role, but if you were the head cheerleader and had specific duties that others didn’t, then you could count that as leadership. Being a leader at a VBS could be both volunteer and leadership. Travel softball is an extracurricular activity, and doing it for so many years shows a commitment to excel.

11

I live only about 20 minutes from the campus, so getting there to meet with somebody is not a problem. How would I go about doing this?

12

https://nursing.umich.edu/about/visit-us

Just getting on the website and browsing will help you immensely. And have questions prepared to ask whoever you meet with.

13

@Choski94… Yep I know I was setting myself up with that statement … Lol…

@wmc656… These new inventions called the telephone or email… :smiley:

Just look up whomever you want to talk with. Your regional counselor is a good idea also. Keep in mind many people on vacation now. My son emailed a thank you to whomever he was in contact with but also cc’d his regional counselor. He didn’t have to let her know that he was interested in Michigan. It was self evident. He meet her at his school also when they visited. This way if you have to do a letter of intent email at another time.,it won’t be your first contact with that person either.

14

If you haven’t already, you don’t need to retake the sat, just focus on the act since you have a good score already. Other than that you’re fine

15

I just got my sat score back from the test I took in June and it was 1400 (1410 superscore). Does this improve my chances at all?

16

@wmc656… Well you said you thought you would score 1400… Congrats… That’s awesome! Of course it will help and there is only so much you can do at this point.

https://admissions.umich.edu/apply/freshmen-applicants/student-profile

Check naviance for your school and see what students got in or rejected with score wise. This might give you a clue but remember that Michigan has been insanely competitive these last few years. But you put yourself in a much better situation so be proud of that.

17

@wmc656… Just looking at your classes you took and will take in senior year. Your rigor is good. Some here might not understand that not all schools have a lot of AP offerings but you have honors and anatomy at most schools is a tough class . I just question why stats instead of Calc 1 if you already took precalc? Stats is viewed as an easier class and a lot of schools don’t count it for math per se. Michigan is a calculus heavy school and why most engineering, medical etc start at either precalc or Calc 1 and it’s not easy either so having it is high school will only be an advantage and shows more rigor.

18

When I visited UM school of nursing back in April they said they value ap stats over ap calc because it applies more to nursing and shows more directed interest in nursing I guess. I was considering adding maybe one or two more AP classes for senior year (micro or world history), do you think that would be beneficial or should I stick to what I have?

19

AP shows more rigor but you also want to keep your grade point up. You can call and talk with an admissions advisor or your regional person if they are around. It gives you a relationship to your regional person and its a great and fair question to ask . Both questions are.