okay I’m serious, if our kids do end up getting in I really want to meet each and every one of you because this group is such a unique group of people with strong opinions and thoughts! we need to have a CC meetup for at drop off in August!
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I think the phrase you’re looking for is “widely-speculated”
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I will add that every application gets a look. The process is on their website. They take it very seriously. It most likely causes delays. This whole process sucks.
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As I’ve said - people should not conflate the admissions process with the quality of the school itself.
They are different things - and at the end of the day, those who want to go to U-M will go
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Having worked in college and professional school admissions for years (not at UM) there was once talk of limiting the number of applications, but there’s no way this could fly. There is just too much work to do, and the argument of fair vs unfair will never be resolved. They take who they want.
the issue is not that they postponed some students- this is excepted; it is the scale at which they exercised this no decision option.
Before you repeat a prior claim that postponement is a decision, let me quote UM
" We have decided to postpone making a decision on your application at this time"
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If you take the crazy increase of applications into account the last few years and I’ve heard this years Early applications were another record, and now the speculation that they will need to decrease number of admitted students some this year compared to the last few anyways…AND we want them to be true in their holistic review of our kids apps…it makes perfect sense to me that the absolute majority would be deferred or denied.
This is just my personal opinion but I would absolutely rather my kid be deferred from their top school/s then denied as clearly then they still have a shot. However I can understand some not wanting to wait.
As far as deferral being a decision, lol, regardless of ones opinion on that it is one of the three responses we were told from the getgo were a possibility. 
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Lots of schools have had record applications and seemed to have figured it out.
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It’s in our online portal for the HS. It’s documented. There’s speculation (U-M defers high stat kids from OOS) and there’s documentation (postpones almost every kid from a HS and tells them in that postponement that they haven’t been considered yet).
Yes. OOS.
I think that taking into account the sheer amount, speculation/rumor (I certainly can’t back this but it makes perfect sense…heck even just taking into account housing availability I can see them decreasing the admit number some this year) about lower acceptance rate being an understandable possibility this year, the comparison to in vs OOS…I just am not surprised and in fact, prepared and expected it and we are in state.
Ours is identical. Almost every kid is postponed, and then AO follows up with GCs to determine interest before any decisions are made. I think one student has gotten in EA over the past three years, and she was hooked big time.
If this were RD, I don’t think anyone would have a complaint. But when EA is not really EA for a good portion of applicants…it is disingenous to the nth degree.
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Understandable…but then consider and deny in EA. Very few applicants seem to be denied in EA first round.
Again, Michigan “kicks” a lot of apps to RD because they receive 80,000+/- of them and I’m guessing they still accept about 50% (or more) of their 15,000-16,000 acceptances, so there are many deferrals.
I always looked at Michigan compared to our CA publics. There’s probably a couple hundred thousand applicants still waiting to hear their decisions. Two examples, Cal (UCB) releases 3/24 and UCLA releases 3/18.
The theory that Michigan doesn’t review their EA apps by the EA deadline has been floated every year for last decade or more. I’m sure it’s passed along to people every year. Not that I believe this anyway, but I’ve been told behind the scenes here at CC that is simply NOT true.
But you certainly don’t have to believe me or what’s posted on Michigan’s website. And FWIW, I choose not to believe what’s “documented” in your HS online portal.
You have to remember that each school, CoE, LSA, Nursing, Kinesiology, STAMPS, Taubman, etc. review their apps separately. Ross, of course, is different. They review their own apps, but after the home school has accepted the applicant.
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Right, that makes sense to me and doesn’t feel nefarious to me. Going in OOS applicants KNOW their odds are exceptionally low given even just past history and data UMich themselves provide regarding the makeup of their admitted classes…then factor in everything else the last few years and I can’t imagine being surprised that even larger amounts of OOS high stats kids are deferred and/or rejected. I can’t speak to this proof, perhaps if it’s there on the site you could share it, I just don’t know that I believe they went out of their way to give any more information than the basic deferral responses anyways, but I’ll be honest…even if they flat out told us that they deferred our kid because they wanted to give every kid a fair review and they weren’t able to yet for reasons stated, I’d be okay with that because I’ve already accepted (in fact expected) the possibility of deferral and i want my kids app to be given the consideration it deserves even if that comes later. Heck, that’s why my daughters Yale app wasn’t submitted EA like we planned…unforeseen things came up, a perfect storm if you will, so she wanted to be able to give it the time and attention she knew it deserved.
Yes, they are a business, yes they “should” be more professionally prepared say than a 17 year old, lol, but these schools have also made allowances which BENEFIT some of our kids admitted due to the pandemic effects…I don’t mind giving it back and having more patience and if we were OOS I would have told my kid the same as I did for the elite schools mines applied to…you DESERVE it, just like 95% of the kids applying to these schools…but statistically speaking, it is most likely going to be a denial. Harsh? Maybe, depends on ones parenting I guess…I view it as just simple truth and she busted ass to do the best she possibly could for years with these facts in mind and we all hope she’ll be one of the fortunate few…but we have accepted THATS unlikely.
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What do you consider “very few” rejections? Here on CC? I’d agree. Absolutely, but this site skews very high stat.
We don’t know for sure how many rejections are sent out in EA or in each wave, but even in prior years, the 3rd wave wasn’t 100% rejections. So, there must be TONS of rejections being sent in every wave. We just don’t see it.
Last year there was about 64,000 rejections and I’m positive they didn’t all arrive in the final wave.
One other thing, few, if any, rejected applicants actually post their rejections. And I get the anecdotes from one HS or a district of HS’s. But that’s not a big sample, IMO. With the in-state release last Friday, they’re obviously good at targeting HS’s.
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As I mentioned above, as just one public school example, UCLA received 150,000 apps by 11/30 and they’ll release their decisions on 3/18. Cal releases on 3/24. Now, they both accept their top 1-2% of applicants for Regent scholarships usually in February.
For my D18, it was nice to have received the Michigan EA acceptance before the UC’s.
The plural of “anecdote” is not “documentation.”
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You would be happier with a denial than a deferral? I personally wouldn’t but I can understand if so, just curious if you guys truly would have preferred that or then would it have been a case of well my kid offered more but this RD kid got in with seemingly “less” in one way or another (or multiple) and I don’t like that.
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