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<p>I don’t disagree with this. My only point is that Michigan places particular emphasis on GPA which they describe the single most important factor in their admissions decision, and they pride themselves on their 3.7-4.0 unweighted 25th/75th percentile GPA medians, which means their “minimum cutoff” is going to be pretty high. A 3.57 unweighted essentially means you’re competing to get into the bottom quartile of their entering class on the criterion they consider most important. The 31 ACT means this candidate will stand out relative to other candidates with a similar GPA, but it’s still a low GPA relative to what they’re looking for. Consequently, I’d have to rate Michigan a “reach” instead of a “match” for a candidate with these stats, unless recalculating GPA the way Michigan does—looking only at sophomore and junior year grades and translating all grades into “whole letter” grades (A+, A, and A- all count as A = 4.0; B+, B, and B- all count as B = 3.0; etc) pushes the candidate’s GPA at least into the middle 50%, i.e., above 3.7.</p>