What Happens if you don't get into Ross?

For those that aren’t preferred admits into the Ross School of Business, we have to apply during the end of our freshman year at Michigan. Yet this seems extremely risky - I read that the acceptance rate is only about 40% for those applying for regular Ross admission.

So what happens to the 60% of people that didn’t get in? They all clearly wanted to go to Michigan for the business major, but now they have been rejected and are likely still undeclared majors in the LSA school. On top of this, the Ross decisions don’t come out until the end of June, which pretty much means that the rejected students are also locked in to attend Michigan for their sophomore year. There’s no transferring out through normal means that late into the year.

What do they do? Do they pretty much just have to choose an LSA major and live with it? Do they try and transfer to another business school?

I was reading earlier posts and a lot of people who didn’t get in were wishing they had sent transfer applications to other schools. There was even a guy who got rejected from Ross regular admission but managed to get accepted for transfer to an Ivy League school as an economics major. That just shows how hard it is to get in, and also potentially that it may be a little bit of a random shot in the dark.

Chris, I only recommend going to Michigan if you have a plan B that is as appealing (or at least almost as appealing) to you as Ross. If that is not the case, I would go to another university. As you aptly point out, getting into Ross is not easy, and in the case of such selective admissions, the process is indeed a little bit random.

I believe you can try again the next year, but it will take you longer to graduate because Ross takes a minimum of 5 semesters.

Depending on your goals, transferring to another business school may be the right choice, or picking another major in LSA or CoE might be the right choice. It depends on the person.

Also you can always major in economics, which is an LSA major

Yup, I think most become Econ majors. If you go the route of attending Michigan and then applying to Ross, work especially hard in the classes they require you to take. Seek tutoring if you have trouble. They mean it about the minimum grades I those classes, and high grades (and a high GPA in general) really help with Ross admission.

It is not likely someone could not get into Ross transferred to CoE. Unless you are prepared to do so in freshmen and would be overwhelmed with the requirement for both Ross and CoE.

I agree that if you don’t have the grades to get into Ross from LS&A, your chances of transferring to CoE are going to be low as well. There is a joint program between Ross and CoE (just saying, but you have to be qualified for both to do it, I think – so it isn’t really relevant to the OP’s question).

This is precisely what was worrying me… I have asked all of the same questions. I remember being a naive junior in high school and asking the UM representative that came to my school … “Uhhh, what happens if I don’t get in to Ross?” And he said so cavalierly and rather rudely as he dismissed me, “they just have to go on and study one of our other majors. There’s a ton in LSA, you could study kinesiology or economics…” And I’m like… I don’t have any desire to study those… !

I truly dislike this process and it almost made me not choose UM. I’ve just decided to try extremely hard freshman year and work tirelessly to make my application impressive. This school is too expensive for my family to waste any time and money not studying what I really want to study… Business…

“This school is too expensive for my family to waste any time and money not studying what I really want to study… Business…”

Unfortunately, that is the price you have to pay to attend one of the very top business schools in the country. The business world is very competitive, you might as well get used to it. If I were you, I would attend Michigan and try my best to get top grades. If you feel that you won’t be competitive for Ross after a semester, and your grades should givewill still have three years to complete a business degree and your credits should easily transfer from Michigan. That way you didn’t waste a year of time.

I can see how an OOS student especially might not want to take the risk.

These are the types of questions that piss me off alot about ross (currently double majoring in engin and ross). Just because Ross is ranked higher ranked/harder to get into doesn’t mean that the rest of michigan is a waste of money/worse. Just try your hardest freshman year, get as high of a gpa as you can. That’ll set you up in a good position for applying. If you don’t get in, you’ll still gonna be fine as you have a high gpa. Simply getting into Ross isn’t gonna solve your problems. Also, applying to Ross/getting into ross doesn’t mean you wanna do business. I know alot of preadmits that have dropped, or are gonna drop Ross to do something else they want. Most people have no idea what they wanna do freshman year of college, let alone senior year of hs.

I went to Ross, but these questions don’t actually annoy me at all. Some students do know what they want to do. If Ross makes it hard to be sure they can do that, and there are many other colleges in the country that they can attend and do exactly that. It is just a tradeoff applicants have to make. But if you are from OOS, it is a bigger gamble because the cost is so much higher.

There is always a risk that one cannot get into certain majors in all school unless you are admitted directly to the major (or pre-admitted). That’s why they have the pre-admission so at least some of the students do not need to worry about that.
For the dual major in Ross/CoE, one need to specify it on CommonApp too. I don’t think that can be easily done if one was admitted to CoE first.

A lot of them do Econ, Org Studies, PPE or something else.

The School of Information is new but has a lot of management courses too, but it’s a two year program.

I know a few international students who worked at IBM and BlackRock after doing degrees in Psych and Econ through apply on their web portals.

You should be going to as many networking events as you can, join several career oriented student orgs, and one project based one that involves a lot of teamwork and leadership relevant to your interests and future.

Its not impossible, you’re just going to have to do things differently.

Anybody know when BBA pre-admit decisions will be released by Ross? I know they’re releasing MBA decisions March 13th, do you think its possible people could hear as early as then?

This is off topic, so sorry, but the thing I never knew about UMich when I first went there and the thing I disklike most about it is how segregated Ross is to the point where’s there is a degree of snobbery and elitism within the student body itself. The business school is in its own really nice building where all the business classes take place, more resources are given per student compared to the other colleges, and the students are basically spoon fed job opportunities compared to LSA. Not to mention the donations given exclusively to the business school.

There is definitely elitism when it comes to the business school. LSA is sometimes referred to as L S and Play, and I remember feeling sort of insulted when I first heard that, even though it wasn’t directed at me. I transferred to UofM my sophomore year and was really happy to be at this great school and was pretty disgusted whenever conversations bashing LSA majors happened. I got the impression that people would think that because I was majoring in economics, that it automatically meant that I didn’t make it into the business school. Of course, I hadn’t even applied to the business school (it would have been an extra year anyway) and did not feel compelled to go there, since I didn’t even know what I wanted to do after graduating. Heck, I hated economics and wish I had majored in something else.

After graduating, I got a job on par with what most students from the business school get (although it’s not one of those coveted investment banking analyst jobs in NYC or McKinsey consultant jobs that top students shoot for), so it’s not like you are screwed by not going to the business school. However, when I go to UM alumni events in the city, there are still echos of that snobbery I remember from being a student. For example, I was talking with a girl who graduated a year before me, and she was asking me if I knew certain people from UofM. I didn’t recognize any of the names and realized she was naming all these people who went to Ross. When I told her I didn’t go to Ross she said “Oh, I thought you went to Ross too, that would explain why you wouldn’t know any of these guys.” She didn’t quite say it with a snobby tone (although it didn’t help that she was a snob in general), but it reminded me of how insular Ross could be: are you a UofM Ross alumni, or just a UofM alumni?

To get accepted into Ross, you basically have to get As in your “intro-to-college” classes, which are Calc I/II, Econ 101, Writing 101, plus good grades in your other classes and solid extracurricular activity. Or, be particularly good in high school (ie have your shit together when you’re a teenager, thanks mom and dad). Not that it’s easy to get in or not an accomplishment, but I don’t see how achieving the above is enough to justify the snobby elitist attitudes I would occasionally see. It’s true I’m sure that the average Ross student is more driven than the average non-Ross student, but I don’t buy the idea that the difference is as dramatic as people think. Plus, when you’re in an environment where everyone is shooting for business success, that will pass off on you, it’s not that you are necessarily driven all on your own.

The same is the case in engineering too, though. I remember one of my engineering friends calling IOE idiots of engineering. So tiring and annoying to hear stuff like that.

Again, didn’t mean to go off on the rant. I don’t want to make it sound like this was a huge problem and would happen every week where I would encounter the BBA elitism. Of course, I’m speaking for myself; plenty of people probably don’t even care about this or just joke about it. Overall I had a positive time at the school. It’s just that whenever I read posts like this implying LSA is for failures, it sours my memories of the school a bit. Whoops, giant wall of text.

If one had to apply to “The School of Economics” after their Freshman year, less than 1/2 the applicants were accepted and they knew they highly preferred to major in Economics, that would be the same concern.

While I know an Economics degree is typically obtained by Ross BBA rejects, how reputable is it in general compared to other rival schools? Also, is it possible to apply to Ross as a freshmen with both a major-first preference and minor-2nd preference? I feel that way it would be easier to increase your chances of getting in. Also, with the business school set to be finished expanding by Fall 2016(coincidentally our class’ first year of eligibility for business) would you guys think Ross may accept more BBA preferred admit students this year or transfers next year?

@rjkofnovi‌ I agree with you… It is worth it since Ross is such a great business school. I just get a lot of heat from the family because they worry about the money with the uncertainty of Ross admissions. But like you said I’m just going to give my all to get a high GPA. I shouldn’t have a problem, I’m certain I have the capabilities, however regardless of my confidence there is always a certain degree of anxiety with admissions and the uncertainty of it all.

Tofo, the culture of investment banking is probably a huge circle jerk, Ross kids can laugh at the rest of the school, but once they’re out of the Michigan bubble, the ranks of kids from Duke and Ivy Leagues will be laughing at them.

Personally, I have a family member that went to an Ivy League. He works less hours and gets paid more in a Manhattan-based firm than those from Ross. Yet he never took any business related courses in college.