<p>Chance me?
SAT: CR:690. Math:760. Writing:750. Total: 2200
SATII: Math1:710. MathII: 780.
GPA: 3.7/4.0
Ranking: Top 10% of a super competitive law magnet school.
Senior Year Schedule: AP Stat, AP English, AP Bio, AP Human Geography, AP Econ, Honors Yearbook</p>
<p>Extracurriculars:
-President of Key Club
-Historian of Key Club
-Copy Editor of Yearbook
-Sport Editor of Yearbook
-Vice President of National Honor Society
-Exec Board of National Honor Society
-4 Year Member of Steering Committee Class of 2012
-2 Year Member Environmental Club
-4 Years Snow Club
-1 Year JV Field Hockey
-Missions Trip Leader to Belize (built foundation for a church, counseled a vacation bible school)
-Created a Grassroots Soccer Charity with Inspi(RED)
-Science Honor Society Member
-Ranked number 8 in our school in community service hours</p>
<p>Essay: Pretty unique and interesting. Not the usual template people follow for writing essays. I wrote with a touch of irony and humor about myself, but related it back to a goal I have in life.
Recs: Glowing</p>
<p>You have a good shot albeit your GPA is low and I don’t think Michigan cares too much about rank. Hopefully they’ll overlook the low GPA and see your involvement and ECs.</p>
<p>These people are being overly critical. You’re a shoe-in. People from my non-competitive high school got in EA with 28-30 ACTs and 3.7-3.9’s with less ECs than you have. Not to mention, they care more about class rigor than GPA and being you’re in the top 10% at a hard school, you’re GPA will probably be looked at as near a 4.0 (they don’t judge GPAs by a standard number but look at individual grades and how they compare to the school because some schools are harder and there are many different GPA scales, wow long parentheses lol). Luckily, even though Michigan is a very high caliber school, it is one of the easier ones to get into simply because it’s so large and they have many spots to offer.</p>
<p>^def not a shoe-in. not that you don’t have a solid chance, you clearly do. great stats, but i know people from my school that got deferred with stats even better than those. mich is getting realllly tough to get into; no one is a shoe-in.</p>
<p>If you were in-state, I’d definitely say you’re in. I’m not sure how much harder it is from out-of-state. My daughter was admitted early action, and they’re really hounding her on whether she’s coming. So, I think they’re really trying to figure out how many are coming from EA to help with number for RD.</p>
<p>“My daughter was admitted early action, and they’re really hounding her on whether she’s coming.”</p>
<p>I don’t know how that could happen. D was admitted EA last year and a few days later received a $10K/year four year Michigan traditions scholarship. In previous years, students had 60 days to accept the scholarship, but since that required the students to commit to Michigan before May 1, it ran afoul of the rules colleges set from themselves not to require any non-ED student to commit before May 1. Therefore, Michigan changed the rules so that the scholarship only need be accepted by May 1. D accepted Michigan (and the scholarship) on May 1 and she was never in any way “hounded” to accept earlier.</p>
<p>By “hounding”, I mean weekly/twice-weekly e-mails and letters from various sources: LSA, the honors college, the RC, the president (form letter, of course :), a holiday card, a second personalized letter from the local Alumni group, postcards, a phone call from Admissions, etc. She would be the 3rd generation from our family to attend Michigan, but I think this is just standard operating procedure today. Once you’re admitted, the recruiting continues. I’m a professor at another state university, which our daughter has also been admitted to, and our admissions dept. does much the same thing. Kids are applying to lots of schools, so there’s a lot of pressure to know whether they’re coming once they’re admitted. The kids have until May 1, but the sooner the universities can get you to commit, the better it is for them. So, there are lots of vague hints that the honors college might meet quota, you should lock in an orientation date ASAP, make sure you put in your housing request ASAP, etc. It’s the same deal at my university. This must play into the RD process, because the notification date is April 1, but they still don’t know how many dangling EA students are out there waiting for other April 1 news, scholarship offers, etc. before they commit by May 1. Each university has an expected yield, but sometimes it can be off. A few years ago, my university was short 500 beds because so many more students committed than what was expected! Speaking of which, Michigan is going to be short beds next year, because they’re tearing down Bates, and East Quad is closing for renovations. I have heard from a cousin that works for the university that this will affect admissions, but I have not heard this officially. An article in the paper said this was going to be a loss of 1,500 beds. </p>
<p>BTW, what is the Michigan Traditions scholarship? I’ve seen it listed in the newspaper, but I’ve never heard exactly what it is. I don’t think my D will qualify for any aid at Michigan, and that is a factor.</p>
<p>Ok. I took hounded to mean something a little bit different. According to your definition of hounded, I guess D was a little bit. She actually got a personal phone call from the UM president and talked to her for a few minutes. Getting that call was not a deciding factor, but it wasn’t nothing. She was floating on air for a few days. </p>
<p>The criteria for the Michigan traditions scholarship is a little vague, but for OOS, it is generally for students that went to schools that are typically underrepresented in four-year universities. Although D is white, she went to a majority black public high school and we believe that is why she received that scholarship (plus, she was a strong candidate, that is why she is in honors).</p>
<p>That personal touch does make an impact! Form letters do not. </p>
<p>I suspect you’re right on the scholarship deal. Michigan passed Proposal 2 about 5 years ago that makes it illegal to award admission/scholarships on the basis on race, ethnicity, and gender (that’s a definite paraphrasing/gist of the law in a nutshell). Universities were afraid this would negatively affect diversity on campuses, but they’ve gotten around it by targeting scholarships to residents of certain counties, cities, and students at certain schools where there is a high percentage of African-American students. I remember listening to a speech by our university president stating this was how we’d deal with the new restrictions. We have a number of merit-based scholarships that have these specific residency requirements.</p>