@brantly The suggestion that Michigan is deferring “high stat” students because they feel they are being treated as safeties comes up every year but I’ve seen little evidence of it. At the school I work with, 5 students applied EA this year. All had high stats and impressive applications. 4 were accepted and one was deferred. The irony is that the one deferred has a father who attended UM.
A couple years ago my D applied EA to Michigan. Her only contact with the university was the submission of her Common App. I doubt she looked at the website once her application was complete. No hooks. She was admitted EA in December.
I have no evidence but I can’t imagine a school is tracking portal traffic, and why would that necessarily predict their success at that school or their interest? Based on the number of posts from parents with access to their child’s portal accounts, it’s probably a better measure of the parent than the student. Sounds like a good social experiment!
^Maybe they believe the parent would put pressure on the kid to attend. LOL.
Logging in takes Zero Effort. Writing a thoughtful e-mail, visiting, otherwise showing concrete evidence of genuine interest and good fit (including your original application and essays) are all much more likely to help your chances.
This year’s batch of deferred EA admits - so far - have had very high stats (at least in LSA . . . ).
Again, not based on data but why would a school defer you versus accept you based on what other schools they think you may apply to and if they think it is a safety or not? My guess would be these assumptions go into their yield formulas based on historical data but not on a student by student basis. Other than ED, they may not get this information until May 1. I may be naive, but I think the admissions counselors try to predict a good fit based on the particular school/program you are applying to, stats (not always apples to apples), the intended make-up of the class they desire, in-state vs OOS and probably many other factors.
With all the sophisticated tracking software available out there, I don’t doubt that universities have the ability to track demonstrated interest. However, I don’t believe UMich or big state schools have the same desire or time to track interest at such a detailed level.
Now, I’d bet that many elite smaller private schools like WashU, USCa, ND, Tufts, Ivys, etc. do track demonstrated interest at that level, where portal traffic, opening emails and clicking on links matters to some extent.
I strongly believe the HS’s yield record is one major determining factor to admission. My kid’s CA HS, and other local schools, have high UMich yield rates. UMich is a very popular OOS choice here, notwithstanding having the top notch UC system in our backyards.
schools might “track” in order to improve their marketing. For instance, when my son added a certain school to the common ap. and specified his majors of interest, that seemed to trigger a couple of e-mails - lo and behold - talking up those departments. This was well before he hit “submit”, btw. So they have the capability to track you, it’s just that there’s probably a helluva lot of noise associated with stuff like checking your portal and following them on FB - enough, I would think, to prompt them to rely more on other indicators.
Well, I like the conspiracy theories… I told both of my kids that their school “could” do this so might as well make good use of it. They checked the school sites for their interest but I made sure they looked at the schools mission statements, moto and program /classes they were interested in.
This way when they wrote their essays they could include things that might be important to those certain schools.
I really do think a meaningful essay is one of the key separators when a school is trying to distinguish between one high stat kid from another high star kid.
@CaptainRonnie Sounds like a smart kid. I would say his GPA may be a bit on the lower side and the last minute essays prob could have been thought out more. Also it seems as if 13 APs is great, but nowadays it seems like at a public school, AP class is kind of just like a normal class at some private schools. Plus most big public schools offer tons of AP courses relative to private schools, so 13 at a public school is not as high of a volume compared to what the school most likely offers. It’s all about the volume. If the school offers 4 each year and you take all 3-4 you’re great on volume, but if the school offers 8 and you take 3-4, then your volume or ratio of AP’s taken to AP’s offered is not nearly as high. Although this may not be the case, your son sounds like a great kid and has very good activities. Well deserving of an admittance. Hoping for the same for my young lad.
Looking for some advice. My counselor said they sent the 1st semester grades but they still aren’t showing up in wolverine access. They sent them yesterday or the day before. Should I be worried? Is there anything I should do?
I called the admissions office a week ago because my mid-year transcript was not showing up on wolverine access either. Admissions reassured me they had received my grades, but it takes 1-2 weeks to process through their system and appear on the portal. Hope that helps! Don’t stress! I’m sure they have them
Thanks so much!! @lcnova3 maybe i should call to show demonstrated interest lol. Im hoping there is a wave tomorrow but if not i think it will be the beginning of March.
I was EA deferred, but I never even got a decision tab? I found out my decision through email, and that was about it. Is that bad that I don’t have one to begin with?
