<p>You know, you seem to look down on the juggling part of his application, but as a competitive juggler myself, I would argue that it is a very legitimate extracurricular activity. Some people put in hours upon hours perfecting it, and there are both regional and international competitions for it.</p>
<p>Do you know if he has placed in anything such as the IJA juniors competitions, WJF, or EJC? Given that the admissions committee understood the weight that one of these awards holds and the amount of practice required, that is where his hook could lie.</p>
Let’s see…according to the 2008 freshman class profile:</p>
<p>52% of students earned a 3.9 GPA or higher
86% of students earned a 3.6 GPA or higher
78% in top 5% of their high school class
94% in top 10%
99% in top 20%</p>
<p>That leaves about 6%(343) and 1%(57) of last year’s freshman class below the top 10% and top 20% of their senior class. Some of you apparently know a lot of these people; and most of them probably have divorced parents.</p>
<p>It’s early in the process for a “mediocre” student to get in. I suspect there is something about him that is not at all mediocre. You don’t know what his essays or recommendations were like, especially relative to other students. Also, U-M may have calculated his GPA differently than you’ve estimated. Finally, his neighborhood and/or school could be a plus factor if either is a type of school or neighborhood which is underrepresented at Michigan.</p>
<p>As for all the other speculation about what direction Michigan is moving in (more selective, less selective, “tons” of crappy kids admitted or not)–I think it’s awfully hard to judge from anecdotes and you’d be smart to get out of the habit of drawing conclusions that way! You will get hammered for that kind of thinking in college, wherever you end up.</p>
<p>The state of michigan is in such a bad financial situation right now, they probably have lowered their admissions standards just a bit because they really need some OOS tuition money. I got in OOS, and though my stats weren’t nearly that bad, they were still below average. I do think my essays helped ALOT, so maybe he had awesome essays. Also, the rule of thumb is that when you have a really good connection, you don’t tell people.</p>
<p>Well, sure, U-M could increase its tuition revenue significantly just by admitting more nonresident students. But it has a couple of limits.</p>
<p>ONE, it is, in a political sense, quite difficult to just start turning away scads of residents to take non-residents. There are some real costs to such a strategy, and U-M wouldn’t undertake it lightly.</p>
<p>TWO, It is also costly from a quality standpoint to just start admitting more nonresidents for their check-writing abilities. If U-M is going to take more nonresidents, it will only do so as long as it can do so without going a lot lower in the applicant pool (in terms of quality). Luckily that’s not an issue; every year there are nonresidents who are denied admission who are just as good as students who got in–they just applied later. If it increased Nonresident numbers, U-M would admit those kinds of students, not student who are less qualified than the typical admit. </p>
<p>Put these two factors together, and you can see that U-M won’t admit THAT many more nonresidents (even in a bad budget year) and the ones it does admit won’t be less-qualified.</p>
<p>So don’t sell yourself short. If you got in, it’s not because U-M is lowering its standards. There must have been something there in your application that made you desirable, even if you’re not sure what it was.</p>
<p>Stop complaining . There tons of mediocre intellects at michigan who can be found at the local frat house’s. Btw these are the same losers who have 4.0’s and 2000 avg. Sat scores. Michigan is tired of snotty rich bastards who’s college experience is composed of drinking natty on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Michigan wants diversity. Not in the form of race preference, but in new perspectives that bring new ideologies . </p>
<p>I applied late last year as a senior and got deferred/WL/rejected.</p>
<p>1940 sat, 5 5 4 AP’s chem,calc,econ, 790/750 math ii,chem sat II, 3.8 HS gpa. All AP/honors classes, out of state, didn’t ask for financial aid.</p>
<p>I am currently a student at msu, I did apply for transfer. (still need to send my transcripts/ap scores to U of M). </p>
<p>I’m in IM soccer and IM football. In the Honor’s College and on the Dean’s List. 3.9 GPA.</p>
<p>I’d only be shocked if I got rejected again.</p>
<p>Beejay, yours was probably a timing issue, really. The odds of getting in, later in the process, decline. I hope you do get a successful nod from U-M on transfer. I know that rising juniors get more consideration than rising sophomores. If you have a great record at MSU and don’t get in, it’s probably the class level issue, not anything about YOU.</p>
<p>That’s right hoedown. Do you know what you want to major in yet Beejay? If you do, and it’s not one of the most popular majors on campus, it might be helpful when you talk to an advisor. Try to find some kind of hook that will set you apart. I’m not talking from experience, but i feel it might be worth the effort if you really want to go to U-M.</p>
<p>So far this year in my grade alone, we have had 21/22 students accepted. I know a student who was rejected to Northeastern and got into U Mich, and she had no hooks to the school.</p>
<p>I really think the school just needs the out of state money.</p>
<p>I’m starting to think that too. Reading through the decision thread I’m seeing a lot of people with lower gpa’s and test scores get in if they’re oos, but only a few instate people with those stats getting admitted. I’d like to see more thread about how much aid they’re offering to people.</p>
<p>If it is true, I’m surprised michigan would do that. But hey college is big business these days.</p>
<p>When you say kids with divorced parents are getting in, does this mean they wrote about the impact in their essays or the admissions counselors just read it in the family info part of their application? I don’t understand how this works. My parents are divorced and this had a HUGE impact on my life, as it has for others, and I got deferred. I didn’t write about it in my essay so maybe that made a difference?
I’m a little confused here.</p>
<p>About 6%(343) and 1%(57) of last year’s freshman class below the top 10% and top 20% of their senior class. Some of you apparently know a lot of these people; and most of them probably have divorced parents.</p>
<p>p.s. Last year, more than 60% of the applications were from OOS for about 35% of the seats. Do you guys really think that OOS admission stats are lower than in-state?</p>
<p>“If Michigan is so desperate for money, why did they just spend $108M for the Pfizer lab (UM pulls of great deal). That’s equivalent to about 3,375 OOS tuition.”</p>
<p>Because that’s ridiculously cheap for what we’re getting, and it costs a hell of a lot less to move into existing facilities than it does to build new ones.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is some kind of quick desperate cash-grab. It’s probably a more calculated effort to increase the percentage of OOS students in the long run, which will not only increase yearly cash flow but also improve our reputation nationally/in the rankings. There’s also a chance that they’re expecting a stronger than average in-state class this year, since top students from Michigan are going to be more likely to take the in-state tuition as opposed to going to private schools given the current economic situation.</p>