What do you mean did he learn what happened?
What he found out is they redact your LOR’s, the UM reviewers make some comments, talk about your essays and activities, they write your GPA because it is true that they do recalculate it as an unweighted GPA without +/- and only academic classes, in his case he was applying to COE and they only seemed to care about his Math ACT/SAT as that’s the only score that was noted on his file except he didn’t turn in an SAT score but it showed 800 Math SAT. He did get a 36 on the ACT Math, so he assumes they use SAT as a factor and that’s why they converted his to an SAT. He thought that was odd. He also noticed that his application was reviewed within 2 weeks of submitting it for EA which was in his case he submitted the night before the deadline. His friends also all went to look at theirs and they were all reviewed before the EA notification date. A lot of people who’s kids get postponed seem to think it’s because they don’t have time to get through all the applications but there’s no evidence whatsoever that’s ever been the case. The two readers also both rate the applicant. I can’t remember offhand what the scale is…1-12 perhaps or maybe 1-15. 1 is the best. My son had a very good rating. Higher than others he know who were accepted in EA however he was initially postponed. Nothing in his file mentions postponed, in fact the opposite. His letter he had to write after he was postponed (ECI or whatever they call it there) wasnt’ even in his file nor were his mid semester grades. He found that odd. After the initial review and the comments that he’d make a great addition to UM, the only addition was actually his final transcript which came after he had clearly committed. Another oddity.
We can only assume, but think he was always in the accepted pile but they just had to wait until the RD acceptances or enough students decline their acceptances. In that RD round in late March of his year ('21) he wound up being the only kid from our school accepted to UM. However, there were 20+ accepted in EA. He was the salutatorian so it was sort of a bummer for him to see all these other students accepted during EA but all but 2 were in something other than COE so that’s most likely the reason and the 2 accepted one was the weighted valedictorian and one was the uw valedictorian so that makes sense.
Best advice I can give from what I know about his app is to be well rounded, but not have a ton of little activities that you can’t thrive in. Also, if you can have something unique outside of school. This is probably one of his weaknesses that he looked very similar to other kids. My other kids all had something unique whereas I can’t say he really had that one special thing and because of who he is, he didn’t care so much about that. He does have his own small business so in his own way that’s unique.
The other thing is the essays. One doesn’t need to fawn all over “I bleed blue” etc. He certainly didn’t. He 100% didn’t. But you can write a damn good essay that isn’t one that you just find and replace the name of a school to send the same one to each school.
What has definitely changed in the 9 years since we started the process with my first kid and now I will say is that I do think you want to try to get yourself out there with making a connection to the regional person for UM (or other school) in your area. Ask questions about a program you’re interested in. Reach out to a professor about a course or their research. Write about that research. But, it’s a fine line…you have to learn to be a suck up without being annoying or obnoxious about being a suck up. They’re onto that game too. My son never would’ve played that game had we even known or thought that was going on these days and my other kids are way too shy to have reached out. So each kid is different. It can work, but it can also backfire if a kid becomes too annoying to the college reps if you know what I mean.
Oh and by research what I meant is he really looked into their CS program and professors and how big it is, the professor’s backgrounds, and the size of the entire University as a whole. Much smaller than he first thought which turned out to be a big plus for him. There were obviously some other things as well.
I have 3 kids at 3 powerhouse academic schools and I’m not gonna lie…there are pluses and minuses at all 3 of the schools. No school is perfect. But they are each perfect for my individual kid. They found their fit. Each school has things I love and things I really can’t stand. My kids are all happy, and I’m pretty sure will all be gainfully employed and off my payroll soon enough. 
