I am applying to Michigan under Regular decision, and recently heard from a friend that the earlier that you apply in Regular the better. Is this true? Is there any benefit in applying, say, tomorrow, as opposed to applying the day before the February 1st deadline?
Yes, because after early action, they go by something called rolling admission. That is, applications will be reviewed and decisions will be made as they come in. Here’s the concept:
Every year, the University of Michigan has roughly 6,000 seats for freshman. When you apply early action, you are competing against other applicants for 6,000 open seats. After early action, a reasonable assumption is that roughly 2,000 to 3,000 seats have been taken, thus there are 3,000 to 4,000 open seats left for regular decision. If you apply early in the regular decision period, you will be competing against other applicants for the 3,000 to 4,000 open seats. If you keep waiting, more and more seats will be taken, and then you will be competing against other applicants for fewer and fewer open seats.
Basically, if you apply earlier, there will be less competition per open seat.
Just note that whenever you see “rolling admission”, it is in your best interest to apply as early as possible (but don’t compromise a well written application to do so). You will likely see this again should you plan to continue into graduate or professional school after undergrad.
@umcoe16 Note that the yield rate is ~45% last year and between 40-42% in average in the last 5 years or so. UMich actually admitted around 13500-15500 to fill that ~6000 seats. The number of EA admission has reduced significantly last year to around 1/3 of total admission. Out of those EA admission, the yield rate should be higher than the 45%. All these numbers does not really matter to OP’s question. UMich’s RD is rolling. That means the decision would come out in batches (even before the application deadline from the past experience). So obviously more seats would be filled before Feb 1 and less would be available afterward.
Ah, I see. Thank you for the reply.
Another quick question, just out of curiosity. What happens to the applicants deferred in the EA round? Have their applications been considered already?
UMich actually does not know how many seats have been filled until the student committed and paid the deposit by May 1. So all the admission numbers are based on estimation and past experience. Started last year, they admitted less students in EA and RD and planned to use the waitlist to fill the remaining seats. However, most seats were filled before even using the waitlist last year due to the increase in yield rate.
Also, how screwed am I if I apply in a week as an OOS applicant? As that is rather late, I’m not too confident in my chances now.
No, it is still “early” just not EA early.
@billcsho yeah I heard last year there was an unusually high yield rate. But my main goal was to illustrate how the concept of rolling admission works, and why it is in your best interest to apply early in such cases.
@hidekiryuga16 not the best, but not the worst. I can guarantee you that there will be a good number of applicants working up to the deadline when it comes to applying.
You can’t really predict well. Competition could diminish if a school finds that more students declined their offers than expected-which would mean they may ease up later. The best bet is not to think you can predict better or worse odds-just get the applications in to get them off your back.