Which, in your opinion, is more selective, out of state Michigan engineering or out of state LSA honors program?
While OOS for both are very selective, LSA Honors Program would be more selective when you consider that only about 10% of LSA students are in Honors.
Honors is more selective. Honors is the most selective program at Michigan, followed by Ross and then Engineering.
I agree with Alexandre. Think about it. Say half of 40,000 OOS applicants are LSA applicants vs. Engineering (I have no idea if that is the right number or not but it works in general). If you assume 25% admit rate overall, then take the 60/40 split of In-state vs. OOS, apply that same split to honors, and 500 students admitted to Honors, you only have 200 OOS Honors students. I’ve never seen an actual stat but 200/20,000 is 1% or 200/5,000 (since you have to be admitted first) is 4%, or 200/ 1,600 is 12.5%. Any way you look at it, it’s pretty selective.
I’m in Honors and I see by other posts you are in COE. I bet we both end up doing okay at the end of the day regardless of the selectivity.
Why are you so concerned with acceptance rates & selectivity? Is that the primary criterion for which option you’ll pursue?
Fatsquirrel, unfortunately, many high school students base their decision on exclusivity. Just look at the University if Chicago. In 2005, it had an acceptance rate of 40% and a yield of 30%. Today, it has an acceptance rate of 10% and a yield of 50%. The more exclusive a university appears to be, the more appealing it will be to some students.
@96blue Only 25.5% of total UMich applicants last year applied to CoE. The OOS applicants would not be too different from that ratio. So there should be near 30,000 OOS applied to LSA. The admission rate for CoE 2014 was 27.67% (3489 out of 12607) including in state and OOS. The CoE admission rate for OOS is likely below 20%.
Also, the yield rate for OOS student is around 25%. In other words, only 1 in 4 admitted OOS students would enroll.
billcsho, I think in time, Michigan’s yield for OOS students will rise significantly in the future. There are two reasons for this:
- The current $4 billion fundraising drive is aimed primarily at improving FA for all students. I suspect Michigan will soon meet 100% of demonstrated FA needs for all US applicants.
- Perceived exclusivity. As Michigan's admit rate continues to plummet, Michigan's yield will improve.
With more FA to OOS, it would definitely increase the yield rate, however, they will have to admit less students to avoid over enrollment. In other words, the admission rate would be even lower.
In terms of acceptance rates, Ross ¶ < LSA (honors) < CoE
Here are the best available sources…across years, so consume with caution 
This years numbers will be all lower, but the trends are likely to be the same? OOS rates are probably lower across the board in all 3 categories
Class of 2016
Ross PA [Applications/Admit/Attending] = 2966/340/133 or ~11.4%
http://michiganross.umich.edu/programs/bba/class-profile
2013-14
LSA-Honors [Applications/Admit/Attending] = 1900/450-500/405 = ~23-26%
Last question in: http://www.applytohonors.lsa.umich.edu/#!admitted-student-profile/c1c84
Table 8.3 on page 109: http://obp.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/almanac/Almanac_Jan2015.pdf
2014
CoE [Applications/Admit/Attending]: 12607/3530/~1550 = ~28%
http://www.engin.umich.edu/college/about/facts
It’s a little different with the majority of Ross students coming over from LSA…
^^ how so?
Yes, Ross PA and LSA honors have to be admitted to UM and LSA respectively. But the above numbers are for all freshman applicants. Ross numbers may include CoE applicants, but my guess is that’s a small number.
@econdude CoE admitted 3489 students last year and the admission rate was 27.67%. The CoE facts page just rounded up the percentage to 28%. The correct numbers are 12607/3489/1318.
@econdude - it is different between the Ross PA and LSA Honors acceptance rates shown. That is because the 1900 LSA Honors applicants already had to be admitted to Michigan before they applied to Honors; while the 2966 Ross PA applicants didn’t first have to be accepted at Michigan (and many if not most of applicants may never have been accepted to Michigan) before applying for Ross PA.
That said, I am not saying that it is necessarily more difficult to end up in LSA Honors vs. Ross PA as I would assume a large share of the Ross PA accepted applicants could have gotten into LSA Honors if they pursued that route.
Good point @wayneandgarth - I agree that LSA honors applicants are self selecting because they have to write an essay after getting accepted while Ross PA applicants check a box along with the main application. So, Ross acceptance numbers may look better than they seem. It would be interesting to see how many Ross PA applicants got admitted to Michigan but not to Ross.
Anyways, it is interesting to look at this data, but it is good to be part of any of these 3 clubs.
There is also an engineering honors program. http://honors.engin.umich.edu/
^ CoE Honors program is very different from other honors programs.