Currently the University of Michigan practices holistic admissions in which presumably passion and commitment for the University are part of the holistic consideration. However, less than half of the students accepted choose to attend UM, and the yield for OOS students is only 30%. These yields are significantly lower than most comparable universities, and suggest discerning true interest from the applications is a very uncertain art.
To deal with this challenge most comparable universities have adopted binding ED followed by a later RD round. ED gets rid of the uncertainty about where a student really wants to go, eliminates speculation about “Tufts syndrome”, and allows a university more control over the makeup of its incoming class. Given the increasing use of ED by other top universities, I wonder if UM may eventually end up following the trend.
EA is a double edged sword. It allows schools to attract a lot more applicants, which they like to do for bragging rights, but it does lower yield. You say that comparable universities offer ED instead, but I think there are very few public universities that do so. Not sure if there is some legal aspect to that or not
Very few (almost NO) public universities have adopted binding ED programs and I think that it would be a terrible mistake for them to do so. ED puts students that need to compare FA packages or that are seeking merit aid at a serious disadvantage. BAD IDEA.
They seem to do just fine with their yield predictions. They don’t seem to over enroll every year and I can’t ever recall la year when they under enrolled. I can’t see any benefit at all for the university to switch to ED other than making students feel like they HAVE to attend if accepted. Right now, when you get accepted you can hit the accept button right in your decision that day so no real benefit to students either. Ifi you get accepted and it’s your first choice, hit the accept button and be done with it. The only benefit I could see would be perhaps less out of state applications to review in October…
I think it’s an excellent idea but I don’t know of any state flagship that has ED. Not sure why. Maybe just have ED for the out-of-state (OOS) applicants, since they are mostly the “yield busters”–the cause being the high cost of attending Michigan for OOS ($60,000 per year for tuition and room & board, not including travel, books, etc…) and very little merit and need-based aid. Students show the passion for Michigan in their applications but when other state and private schools offer merit aid and need-based aid, this causes financial concerns to dictate that those OOS students following the money. Presumably those families would not be using ED.
I think the question is whether at 50/50 instate/OOS, and given the endowment, whether UM admissions are more like other flagships, or more like privates UM often compares itself to (Northwestern, Cornell, etc).
The benefit, other than a higher yield for its own right (which probably isn’t a benefit itself) is possibly getting a higher quality student population in the end. I always thought that was the goal for the privates who switched to ED - they saw too many of the accepted students they wanted most go somewhere else in the end, and decided if they could lock some of them in with ED, they would end up with a better class. I have a feeling it has been seen to work, based on the fact no one has switched back, and places like Chicago switched over after others did.
@turtle17 In my opinion ED for Michigan would be only good for yield and to get mostly full pay/sticker price out-of-state (OOS) students who would not otherwise have a good chance for admission. I disagree that ED would result in a stronger class or that it is currently being used to poach the top applicants. The top applicants don’t need or want to commit via ED, because they will have several competing offers at top schools. And they would not have any leverage to negotiate merit or need-based aid because the ED decision is contractually binding. It’s the strong but less stellar applicants who are “full pay” and for whom Michigan is a “reach school” that would benefit most by going ED. But the benefits to Michigan would be it would guarantee more revenue (from OOS $60,000+ per year “sticker price” students) and a higher yield.
The privates who have gone to ED haven’t gone back. And the ones that were slow to adopt it all have come onboard. You can argue whether they do it because it enables them to hold on to top students, or because it makes their yield management easier. But Duke, Penn, Northwestern, et al seem to be thriving with it, and Chicago decided they needed to catch up fast. I think one interesting test for UM is which is the stronger pool of students - the 30% of OOS students who enroll or the 70% who don’t? If it is the 70% who don’t, are they really optimizing the academics of the OOS pool with the current model?
Considering the yield rate of OOS students, switching to ED would discourage OOS students to apply except for those with lower family income. This could actually create a financial burden to the school. Not only very few, if any, public college do ED, not many school at the size of UMich do either.
William and Mary has ED @trackmbe3