<p>'U'</a>; may switch to Common Application | The Michigan Daily</p>
<p>Great news, isn't it?</p>
<p>This is good news. Many students are discouraged from (or do not even consider) applying to Michigan because it is not part of the common application. This should increase the applicant pool by a significant amount and will make it easier for applicants to apply.</p>
<p>I disagree that this is a good thing. To borrow a page from the debate that surrounded UChicago’s move to the Common Application, a certain degree of self-selectivity is compromised with the increase in applicants. Invariably, the applicants who join the pool will be people for whom Michigan is low enough on their list such that the cumbersome application is enough of a deterrent. In general, these people fall into two groups (i) people who perceive UMich as a very high reach (ii) people who consider UMich too much of a safety. If UMich moves to the CA, it’ll get more applicants from either group while not making much of a difference to applicants for whom Michigan was an apt choice (i.e. those who would very realistically consider attending while knowing that they do stand a decent shot at getting in). The result would be: (a) a waste of precious time that adcoms will spend reading sub-par applications (b) admittance of strong candidates who aren’t really considering Michigan anything more than a safety. This would both lower Michigan’s yield and make the admissions process (on the university’s end) a whole lot more inefficient. Beyond that logical level, I also think it’s not worth a university’s time or dignity to change its admissions process to appeal to a group of applicants that does not value UMich enough to spend the extra half hour or one hour doing Michigan’s non-CA application.</p>
<p>srrinath, Michigan grows on people. It is one of those hidden gems believe it or not. Many people who would not have considered Michigan and are qualified will apply. You are also bound to get additional applicants who, foolishly, will view Michigan as an absolute safety and you have others, who just as foolishly, will apply to Michigan without a hope of getting in. But you will also have many applicants who fall into neither category apply.</p>
<p>Between this and especially with the new GPA policy, at least UMich will now look even more like the top public it is supposed to be… selectivity will definitely increase…</p>
<p>I agree with srrinath.</p>
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<p>Good. IMO if people are too lazy to fill out an additional application to go to U of M, then they’re not too interested in going to U of M anyways, and don’t belong there.</p>
<p>well I’m glad they are changing it after I go to college. Competition would increase substantially</p>
<p>I do find common application to be very helpful, as of now I’m catching up on my applications more easily thanks to common app. at first I thought I was going to be filling tons of different apps falling behind in this crucial process. Though I also would admit that common app somewhat influences me to look at a few other schools I may wouldn’t have ever considered simply due to it being apart of common app.</p>
<p>Any guesses as to what the supplement will include?</p>
<p>This is an obvious ploy to increase selectivity by increasing the number of apps.</p>
<p>it’s about time. </p>
<p>what took them so long.</p>
<p>next year michigan’s application numbers should be at least 36k.</p>
<p>I can’t bring myself to concede to Alexandre’s point about people who consider UMich an appropriate choice choosing to apply only if UMich were to use the Common App. But instead of parroting the point about how someone who can’t spend an hour to apply doesn’t deserve to be a Wolverine, I guess any ‘selectivity’ that results would be a meaningless piece of information. Granted admissions rates might go down, but similarly yields (% of accepted applicants who eventually choose to enter) will go down as well.</p>
<p>rodney, what is the new GPA policy?</p>
<p>I hope they remember to hire more admissions staffs to handle the expected increase in volume.</p>
<p>90% of my daughter’s time applying to UMich was spent:</p>
<p>1) Filling out her data from those crazy drop-down menus- replicating information that was already in the transcripts.</p>
<p>2) Cutting down her essays from 500-700 words down to around 250 words.</p>
<p>The Common App would have been great.</p>
<p>predator: they are no longer recalculating GPA’s, nor are they eliminating freshman year…whatever your HS reports is what they are using; weighted or unweighted</p>