<p>I had a friend with a 4.0 and a 35 ACT (so, not exactly perfect, but the difference between 35 and 36 in admissions is pretty negligible) who was rejected. I surmise that it was because he felt so certain that he would be admitted that he put little effort into his essays, which was something he had alluded to several times. Applicants would be wise to remember that the subjective components of the application matter. </p>
<p>The importance of essays are overrated IMO (unless it varies by college and intended major) </p>
<p>Let’s go a step further. Require admissions on standardized exam scores and GPA for everyone including athletes. No essays, no recommendations, and let’s see what type of university you develop and what happens to your athletic teams. </p>
<p>I doubt this happens but if it does happen it’s because the school knows that it’s a safety and that the chance of the admitted student attending is nil. Rankings take into account yield, the percentage of admitted students who enroll, so when someone who’s just gonna go to HYPSM gets in it makes the school look worse. </p>
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<p>Come on Bearcats, do you really think the university is need-blind? </p>
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<p>The University neither is nor claims to be meritocratic. They’re trying to provide a service for the people that pay them, namely rich White/Jewish/Asian New York/New Jersey parents, who want a few token Blacks around to make it seem like their kid “egalitarian,” “cosmopolitan,” and “liberal.” That’s all there is to it. To the end of providing a good service for the people that fund the university, no, it is not wrong to give preference to people with the “right” skin color. </p>
<p>“Come on Bearcats, do you really think the university is need-blind?”
Are you saying the University under the leadership (or mis-leadership to be exact) of Mary Sue Coleman is full of crap? Oh don’t bother answering I already know the answer to that.</p>
<p>A student in my school had a 35 ACT and approx. 3.95 GPA. Again, not perfect, but extremely close, and he was an in-state student. However, he had been involved in a cheating scandal (including 20 other students) that was put on his permanent record. I’m nearly positive this was what got him rejected. </p>
I had a 4.4 gpa and 35 act and was accepted. I spent days on my essays and showed why I was extremely interested in attended.
“Tufts Syndrome” is just a way for applicants who feel that they were “overqualified” for a college to justify their rejection. There is no such thing.
Don’t insult the rest of us who try really hard, have great scores, and are accepted as a result.
“The importance of essays are overrated IMO (unless it varies by college and intended major)”
Perhaps admissions reads the essays very carefully of those stellar students who are using Michigan as a safety. If I saw an applicant with perfect scores who obviously put little effort into their essays, I certainly would defer/deny admission.
If an applicant with near perfect test scores writes bad/sloppy essays, that probably comes of as arrogance to the admission committee. Essays and ECs are a very important part of the application, and most people tend to forget truly how holistic the admissions process is.
like @berkvard said, it is insulting to call us ‘yield protection’. Just because an applicant with high test scores gets rejected it doesn’t mean the university is being partial, it just means that the applicant lacked in some areas.
Or it was an applicant that probably wasn’t going to attend. for one reason or another and it could be surmised from their application. You’ll never convince me that all 40,000+ applicants really wanted to attend UofM. Michigan has never, ever perceived itself as a “fall back” position for anyone.
my point is if an applicant had perfect stats that suggest that he/she “probably” wouldn’t attend AND had excellent, passionate essays, they are NOT rejected for yield protection. Yield protection doesn’t exist - it is a crutch used by overconfident applicants to justify their lack of passion.
In my opinion, the problem lies in that people perceive a perfect SAT and GPA like a footrace, believing that the first one to it should win. The different between perfection and 3.8GPA and and 2200 score is a few B’s and a few SAT questions. The difference is considered negligible by Adcom, hence consideration of EC’s and essay. Also factors like multiple SAT attempts and weak high school curriculum might have tarnished the perfection.
Bearcats, are you suggesting that universities always admit students solely on the basis of GPA and test scores? You do not think that universities like Cornell and Penn admit hundreds, of students with less than stellar grades and test scores annually? That Michigan is unique in its approach to admissions?
“Michigan is a public university, heavily funded by the taxpayers of the State of Michigan. IMHO, there is nothing wrong with giving some preference to DPS students over out of state students, especially those who are not full pay and expect the university (and the Michigan taxpayers) to pay for their education. Because Michigan is so highly regarded I think a lot of people forget that and think it should act like a private university.”
intparent, is Michigan truly “heavily funded by the taxpayers of the State of Michigan”? At the currently moment, state appropriations make up less than 10% of Michigan’s operating budget. I am not sure I would describe that as “heavily”. There was a time, before this millenium, when Michigan taxpayers truly used to contribute handsomely to the University. But that is clearly no longer the case, and has not been the case for over a decade.
While I still believe Michigan should offer state tuition for in-state students, I think that in-state students should make up no more than 35% or 40% of the entire undergraduate student population.
That is further accentuated by the fact that currently, in-state applicants make up only 20% of the total applicant pool, and that will continue to drop in the coming years since the number of in-state applicants has not increased from the 10,000 mark since the 1990s. The OOS and international applicant pool, on the other hand, has increased from 9,000 in 1997 to 40,000 in 2014.
Financially, Michigan gais far more from lowering the in-state student percentage from the current 60% to a more reasonable 35%.
SamRam - I do believe Michigan and its peers very much do value a 4.0 over a 3.8 and a 2400 over a 2200. They do so for marketing their average scores and ratings. Now I don’t perceive Michigan is as ratings conscience as the U of Chicagos who market the hell out of themselves to lower admit rates. But Michigan still values straight out stats for these reasons.
I expect that these “high stat” admits will be accepted in droves in the next 6 weeks when it is determined they weren’t accepted ED1 anywhere and they express some further interest.
Especially if the e-mail says they will enroll when accepted and they don’t need any financial aid 
My sister was rejected from Yale with a perfect GPA and 1600 SAT (back when the scale was 1600.) We knew why though; she bombed the interview.
albert, I was the chair of the Cornell alumni interview committee in the UAE from 2004-2009, and we were told by the university that the interview was not really factored into the final decision, unless it is very negative, although we never wrote very negative reviews, unless the student was truly obnoxious and offensive. I doubt the interviews was the reason. Today, Yale will only admit 25% of applicants with perfect 2400 on the SAT. Back in your sister’s days, it would probably have been 50% or 60%, unless she applied before 1995, when a 1600 on the SAT was almost unheard of (like 200 globally) and such students were almost always admitted.
That being said, Yale is significantly more selective than Michigan.
Well, she was applying in 2004, I think. She wouldn’t talk during the interview and didn’t hold eye contact. I don’t know how much it factored in, but by the end of the interview, the interviewer was basically telling her that she would do fine at a state university. I get what you’re saying though, that a lot of perfect SAT’ers don’t get into the top schools just because.
Don’t we have a name for that difference? I think it’s called “a standard deviation”.
I know a number of perfect SAT’ers and they are certainly not a homogeneous group. Not all of them WANT to go to a “top school”.