<p>OK, I'm out of state and after searching through many forums on CC, my chances at the University of Michigan seem slight. I'm not of ivy league caliber, and I feel like many of those types of students apply to Michigan as a safety, which worries me. So here are my stats...
good ecs, not going to list them
UW GPA: 3.6-3.7ish (not great but i've taken only honors and AP classes)
W GPA: 4.2-4.3ish
ACT: 31
SUBJECT TESTS: ENG LIT 650 US HIS 760
I've not received my AP scores in the mail yet, but my english teacher called me to tell me I got a 5 on eng lang.</p>
<p>Do I stand a chance? Or should I set my sights lower?</p>
<p>Honestly, I think you have a really good chance of getting into Michigan, even though you didn’t list any extra curricular activities (I’m assuming you have a lot since you didn’t list them). Your ACT score puts you in around the 75th percentile of those who were accepted and your GPA is high enough in Michigan standards. Also, from my school, everybody who had a a SAT score of 1800 or higher got in (besides a kid who had a 3.2 GPA) so you should be fine. Just write a good common app essay and do some research for the Michigan supplement and your chances will be high.
btw, what is your intended major?</p>
<p>If I were you, I would apply to some reach schools like Georgetown or John Hopkins becuase their political science departments are really good. You should have some backup schools too, but If I were in your situation, I would definitely set my sights higher, and not include Michigan as a reach school.</p>
<p>I completely disagree from the the above poster’s assessment of Michigan. Michigan is absolutely a reach school for you. I was an extremely similar student to you when I applied to Michigan as an in state student. I had a 3.64 (UW) and a 33 ACT, while taking all honors/ AP classes and I was waitlisted and rejected from Michigan. OOS, Michigan is like a near ivy. Most OOS students have something like a 3.9 and 32 ACT. You’re going to have to get a 4.0 next semester just to simply have a realistic, albeit rather slim, chance. Even then you would have to have some spectacular essays. I’ll be honest I doubt you can get in. If you are really interested in Michigan, you will most likely get in as a transfer. Sorry for this bad news but telling you the truth is the most important thing. You should probably set your sights slightly lower.</p>
<p>^ I doubt it. My recs and essays weren’t spectacular but they were not bad either. I probably had average recs and above average essays so while they would not have helped me, they would not have hurt me either. I went to a high school that sends something like 50-70 people to Michigan each year and the only person that got in with similar stats to mine was a cross country preferred walk on. I know Michigan well enough to know what kind of students get in and what kind of students don’t.</p>
<p>I never told OP to not try because I did say there was a chance. I was just saying the likelihood of getting into Michigan because OP asked. I don’t want someone getting false hope because in the event that the person gets rejected, it hurts even more. And I do have a pretty good insight into how the Michigan admissions process works because my old high school track coach was an admissions officer there and he pretty much told me how everything works. You’re right that I don’t know exactly how admissions officers think but I have enough of an understanding to make a fairly accurate assessment.</p>
<p>Thank you for the somewhat mixed advice. I will still apply to michigan, but it’s not the only school on my list. I didn’t make a list of my ecs because I previously posted that I believe I have pretty good ecs. But just for those who were wondering, I am highly involved in dance (even taught a few classes) and horse back riding (grand champion locally) I also volunteer quite a bit and am going to south africa this week for 2 weeks to volunteer. Anthonyxy21, were you possibly denied because Michigan thought you were overqualified? I’ve heard that has happened quite a bit.</p>
<p>No. The thing about Michigan is that test scores are less important than GPA. My ACT score was above average but my GPA was below average. I would have had one of the lowest GPAs of accepted students. Michigan generally does not deny people for being overqualified. It has happened on occasion but it is rare. I also spoke with a Michigan admissions officer regarding my application and she told me basically they just wanted to see a higher GPA. They weren’t sure if I would actually apply myself enough at Michigan because my ACT indicated I had the ability to succeed but my GPA indicated that I never applied myself enough to do so.</p>
<p>And by all means try to get in Michigan. Do whatever you can to get in but realize that it is not an easy school at all for an OOS student.</p>
<p>Ok thanks for the advice, would I be a more qualified oos applicant at a school like UW madison? It seems similar to Michigan, but possibly slightly easier to get into? Please anyone correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>One more thing to note: Michigan admissions is harder now than it was in the past because of the switch to common app.</p>
<p>This year, Michigan rejected people with 34 and 35s on ACTs, and you can expect this trend to continue as more people apply (obviously lower ACTs with other good things get accepted), but the admissions process is going to be harder going forward than it was in the past.</p>
<p>That said, seeing your stats, OP, you do have a shot at getting in, especially since you said that you challenged yourself by taking AP classes.</p>
<p>@anthonyxy21&Goldenglobe I don’t know why it was so hard for you guys to get in. Maybe it was harder in state? But for my school, we use naviance and they release scattergrams of all of the colleges seniors applied to last year, and out of the 12 students that applied from my school, 11 got in (the other was waitlisted), including one person with 1750 SAT and 3.8 weighted GPA. Also, doesn’t michigan have like a 50% acceptance rate? I find it hard to believe they’re rejecting kids with 35’s on their SAT.</p>
<p>Do you know if that person was a URM or had some special circumstances? A lot of people who get accepted are using Michigan as a safety because of EA so a lot of ivy or near ivy caliber students are making up that 50% acceptance rate. It’s entirely possible that most of those 11 were elite students that had a good shot at the Ivies and were using Michigan as their safety. And believe me, I have had a much larger sample to look at than just 12 students and I know about 6 people personally that had similar to me and only one got in because he was a preferred walk on. The rest had to go to (Michigan) State or some other school.</p>
<p>Yeah i was wondering about the rather high acceptance rate but that makes sense. I’ll think I’ll apply anyways but I should probably start thinking about more safety schools…</p>
<p>The reason was most likely something of the sort that they are underrepresented minorities, had sports, or had some amazing extracurriculars. If you look at the chances thread in the UMich forum, you’ll see that people with 34s and 35 were getting waitlisted and rejected this past year.</p>
<p>The reason for the extra high acceptance rate for Michigan (50%) was that Michigan accepted more than they thought would enroll that year. They ended up enrolling about 6300 when the target was around 5700 (higher yield rate). With the switch to common app, and with the additional need to shrink the number of acceptances so that it’s more in line with shrinking the student population back to normal (around 5700), you’ll see the acceptance rate this year drop to around 37% (give or take some percent). This is also part of the reason why a lot of people with 34s and 35 ACTs were deferred, waitlisted, or rejected, because Michigan is trying to be extra conservative.</p>
<p>As more people apply on the common app to Michigan over the next few years, you can expect that the acceptance rate will stabilize around 20-25% (probably closer to 25%? but can’t be sure). Same sort of thing happened with Uchicago when they switched to the common app.</p>