<p>Also don’t forget about strength of schedule. Important not only for getting into the tourney, but also to get into college.</p>
<p>kmcmom, you might have been thinking the adm. committee too sophisticatedly. Do you really believe that they were looking at an application so carefully, searching for the traits/hooks you listed? No! Does the fact that so many deferred EA students are offered admission now say something? UM has been doing things very randomly and errantically. Plain and simple…</p>
<p>QUOTE: In fact, the acceptance rate of valedictorians into Michigan is under 70%.
Beacsue the other ~30%+ went to HYPS.</p>
<p>How2PayCollege, the remaining 30% are rejected. </p>
<p>But I do agree that admissions are random. How can a university fairly and logically evaluate 38,000 applicants? Of those, over half have 3.8+ unweighed GPAs with 2000+ SAT/30+ ACT, and many of them will be rejected based in random criteria. The same can be said of any university that receives over 30,000 applicants, whether it is Columbia, Cornell, Harvard or Stanford. The UCs are actually completely numbers based, so their selection process is pretty straight forward. Next year, Michigan will probably receive 50,000 applicants. Good luck handling that sort of volume!</p>
<p>Y’all should understand that EA admissions is a number game. Michigan will only admit a certain number of students in the early round. Being deferred from EA doesn’t mean that you are not qualified or have less chance for admission. It means that you are now part of the RD pool, no more and no less. Don’t think that you are entitled to an earlier decision just because you are deferred from EA, or that you will not get a decision until April 15.</p>
<p>Michigan RD admission is rolling. We know people were admitted in early Feb and then a few days ago, from both the RD and EA deferee pools. And if last year is any indication, Michigan will continue to roll out admit decisions (again from both pools) in the next couple weeks until April 1.</p>
<p>My advice is to be patient. You have waited so long already; might as well wait another couple weeks.</p>
<p>For those who think that Michigan deferred too many from the EA round, let’s compare it to other EA schools of similar statue:</p>
<p>< School >…< EA admit % >
Yale SCEA … 14.5%
Stanford SCEA … 12.7%
MIT EA … 12.1%
Chicago EA … 20.1%
Georgetown … 16.9%</p>
<p>And if you are deferred from any of these schools, you don’t get a decision until around April 1. I am sure Michigan admitted more from its EA pool, and if you are deferred, you get rolling admission. I don’t think you have any right to complain about Michigan’s admission process this year.</p>
<p>Alex,</p>
<p>Going straight and stricktly with numbers is not called random, and I think each and every university should do admission based on numbers first, if not wholy. Anything like essays or ECs should go 2nd or last of the list…Numbers are the most OBJEVTIVE stuff… Don’t brag that you can tell an essay writen by a professional writer from one by a teenager.</p>
<p>I hear How2PayCollege. I never understood the point of “wholistic” approach to admissions. All it does is encourage students to take part in activities that mean nothing to them and to exaggerate their involvement in every insignificant activity. Unfortunately, that’s what happens when you have a mad rush for admission into top schools.</p>
<p>“I’d rather get denied, getting deferred by the safety school just sounds lame.”</p>
<p>WOW. That high horse will definitely get its legs chopped off any school you go to. I guess Michigan shouldn’t have been a safety.</p>
<p>wow, obviously a school with SAT 1835-1985-2135 was “too good” for a student with SAT over 2200. I guess I should let juniors in my HS to get 2400 if they want to get into Michigan. Since when did Michigan become more competitive than ivys? just curous. can someone enlighten me, please?</p>
<p>How2Pay and Alexander – In theory, I am not taking an overly sophisticated view of what admission professionals at UMich are expected to do, and perchance have some degree of personal knowledge of same. Clearly, it is NOT strictly numbers, at least as far as GPA and standardized tests alone – otherwise you would not have these seemingly “random” outcomes of valedictorians not being accepted while others with moderate standardized tests winning scholarships. Alexander, I suspect you are familiar with the publicly available metric the app readers use to score and summarize admits/high admits (and How2Pay, that’s actually available on the admissions website if you’d like to take a peek.)</p>
<p>The totality of the criteria is in fact weighted and variables such as reputation and rigor of school, quality of recommendations, etc. are actually scored. This more accurately reflects the “calibre” of student (at least in theory) because at a public school known for grade inflation and poor coverage of curriculum in a state with an inferior curriculum, a 3.9 or 4.0 simply does NOT mean as much as the same grade at a gifted and talented magnet program or a Hotchkiss or certain states (like NJ) that (at least used to) spend money on its ed system developing superior and rigorous curriculums and the delivery thereof.</p>
<p>The end effect might seem random, and given the vicissitudes of a group of readers/ad coms interpretation of how to assess aps, likely is to some degree random, but I believe there is an equalizing rationale to the system. </p>
<p>So while How2Pay feels I’m giving admissions more credit than they deserve, I’ve got to say I feel on whole that most posters in this and the decisions thread don’t actually give admissions the credit that’s due ;)</p>
<p>But we can agree to disagree!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, admissions are not “random”. If they were statistically random Michigan would only need to assign each application a number, decide how many applicants to admit and then let a computer randomly generate a list of “winning” candidates. If that were the process one could rightfully ask “Why does Michigan need an Office of Admissions?” With random selection and without criteria and analysis of applications the admitted pool of students would be the average of the entire pool. This would likely result in a much lower class profile than the current one that exists. </p>
<p>Additionally, it is important to remember that each school within Michigan will value their own set of criteria differently than a sister school in the university. For example, at the School of Music an applicant with a 3.98 UW GPA, "A"s in Calc AB & BC and 800s on her SATs will likely be rejected if her violin audition was a barely tolerable version of “Hot Cross Buns”. Conversely, The School of Engineering is not likely to be impressed with a candidate who has "A+"s in Sociology and Art classes, but only eked out a D- in basic Geometry.</p>
<p>Admissions are not random, they only appear that way to individual candidates who are left to interpreting incomplete data.</p>
<p>xono, in terms of selectivity, Michigan is not quite on par with the Ivies, but it is not far behind (not where OOS and international students are concerned anyway). Nobody here said otherwise. Then again, nobody here proposed that an Ivy was a viable safety. Likewise, to suggest that Michigan is a safety, particularly now, shows a lack of understanding. And for an international student to think that Michigan is less selective than an Ivy League also shows poor judgement. This year, Michigan will accept slightly pover 15% of international applicants.</p>
<p>Finally, the mid 50% SAT range for admitted students is 1300-1500 (1960-2200). This is not superscored like the Ivy League ranges. The mid 50% SAT range for enrolled students is roughly 1240-1440 (1900-2100). Again, those are not superscored. </p>
<p>[Office</a> of Undergraduate Admissions: About Michigan](<a href=“http://admissions.umich.edu/about/]Office”>Explore & Visit | University of Michigan Office of Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>But who cares about selectivity? Michigan has an obligation to the residents of Michigan and enrolls 26,000 undergrads. But when it comes to quality of education, undergraduate experience, fun and reputation, Michigan is easily as good as most of the Ivies. Regardless of your major, Michigan is going to be ranked among the top 10 or top 15 at the worst. Academically and reputationally, non HYP Ivies are simply not better than Michigan:</p>
<p>REPUTATIONAL SCORE:
Columbia 4.5
Cornell 4.5
Penn 4.5.
Brown 4.4
Michigan 4.4
Dartmouth 4.3</p>
<p>ENDOWMENT:
Michigan $6.6 billion
Columbia $6.5 billion
Penn $5.7 billion
Cornell $4.4 billion
Dartmouth $3.0 billion
Brown $2.2 billion</p>
<p>UNDREGRADUATE BUSINESS:
Penn #1
Michigan #4
Cornell #10
Brown N/A
Columbia N/A
Dartmouth N/A</p>
<p>UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING:
Michigan #7
Cornell #8
Columbia #26
Penn #32
Brown #40
Dartmouth #45</p>
<p>BIOLOGY:
Cornell #11
Columbia #15
Michigan #20
Penn #20
Brown #34
Dartmouth #34</p>
<p>CHEMISTRY:
Columbia #10
Cornell #10
Michigan #16
Penn #19
Brown unranked
Dartmouth unranked</p>
<p>COMPUTER SCIENCE:
Cornell #5
Michigan #13
Columbia #17
Penn #17
Brown #20
Dartmouth unranked</p>
<p>EARTH SCIENCE:
Columbia #5
Michigan #9
Cornell #13
Brown #17
Dartmouth unranked
Penn unranked</p>
<p>ECONOMICS:
Penn #9
Columbia #10
Michigan #12
Cornell #18
Brown #19
Dartmouth N/A</p>
<p>ENGLISH:
Columbia #4
Penn #4
Cornell #7
Brown #13
Michigan #13
Dartmouth N/A</p>
<p>HISTORY:
Columbia #7
Michigan #7
Penn #9
Cornell #12
Brown #17
Dartmouth N/A</p>
<p>MATHEMATICS:
Michigan #8
Columbia #10
Cornell #13
Brown #14
Penn #18
Dartmouth unranked</p>
<p>PHYSICS:
Cornell #7
Columbia #11
Michigan #11
Penn #17
Brown #30
Dartmouth unranked</p>
<p>POLITICAL SCIENCE:
Michigan #4
Columbia #7
Cornell #20
Penn #28
Brown unranked
Dartmouth N/A</p>
<p>PSYCHOLOGY:
Michigan #3
Penn #11
Columbia #17
Cornell #17
Brown #29
Dartmouth N/A</p>
<p>SOCIOLOGY:
Michigan #3
Columbia #11
Penn #11
Cornell #17
Brown #25
Dartmouth N/A</p>
<p>I personally chose Michigan over 4 Ivies and would gladly do so again. I later went to an Ivy for my graduate studies and I must say that my experience at the Ivy, though excellent, confirmed that I made the right decision in going to Michigan for my undergraduate studies.</p>
<p>Fatality…</p>
<p>Alexandre- but you forgot the most important factor! The only thing that matters is Ivy or not Ivy! Michigan is NOT Ivy, therefore it is an awful school that is no better than a community college. Only the people too dumb to get into an Ivy would even think about attending such a ****ty school. And unlike their Ivy counterparts who go on to do great things in life, Michigan grads are relegated to sweeping floors and flipping burgers.</p>
<p>…Nah, I’m just playin with you. All you morons who are convinced Ivy is the only way to go need a reality check. Michigan holds even with most of them in almost every field and is even better than all for some (ie engineering and (excluding Wharton) business). Get off your high horses people</p>
<p>And xeno, shut up. we’re not gonna back up the wahmbulance for you. you didn’t get into Michigan. Deal with it. Badtalking the school is NOT the right way to dealing with it.</p>
<p>*mumurthigal-I just about had the biggest heart attack ever! lol.</p>
<p>I sincerely hope that xeno does the right thing and contacts admissions to let them know that he has decided to go elsewhere.</p>
<p>When I was 8 I chose not to go into my districts gifted program because it rounded together all the “gifted” kids and cut them off from normal elementary school kids. Even at that age I felt they must be all a bunch of snobs and jerks. And guess what? A good number of these gifted kids turned into those social awkward kids in high school that are just weird to be around. (not all, some are cool)</p>
<p>Going to a public high school I looked at private high schools in the same way. A bunch of narcassistic, ego humping, “my daddy is wealthier than yours” kids. My family probably couldn’t have afforded one and I am happy we couldn’t. When there is a douchy, pretentious kid that talks about how awesome he is on campus more than likely he is from a provate school.</p>
<p>Now, if I can extend my data further, adults in the real world that act this way must have gone to an Ivy League school making them think they are better than everyone else. They must suck…</p>
<p>“My name is Gregory. I am a transfer from Yardale where I had a 4.0 grade point average”</p>
<p>kmcmom, I like your posts. I believe that each big college has a comprehensive formula that takes care of many many different quailities of an applicant. However, I asked many adm. officers the formula thing but everybody told me no such a formula. I guess “wholistic” is a better (and easier) word or excuse than a formula to let rejected applicants shut up. </p>
<p>vinceh, thanks for teaching me what RANDOM means. I used to be a statistics teacher but haven’t tought the stuff for a while, and now I use the word just as common people use it.</p>
<p>Michigan is not the Ivies, but if anything, I consider this a plus for it’s students. Michigan is an excellent value for it’s students and yet it still carries a heavy reputation. Michigan is a school worth going to and worth the educational value for where it can take you in life.</p>
<p>
Just so you know, how2, I am betting they pretty much have to say that because they were sued several years back and in the course of the legal wrangling their admissions “formula” that assigned points was struck down. So the concept of “formula” (that assigned points to URMs) has that “taint.” Instead of quantitative (eg. a strong school would net 10 points) they now use “qualitative” assessments (eg. strong school = high admit or other phrases, then each section is weighed.)</p>
<p>Here’s a link to the public document by which they make their determinations. While it is not exactly a formula with a numeric rubric, it certainly makes clear their guidance for assessment.
Go to this page and download the “Rating Sheet” pdf an you can see exactly how they assess applications. [Office</a> of Undergraduate Admissions: Application Review](<a href=“http://www.admissions.umich.edu/prospective/prospectivefreshmen/appreview.php]Office”>http://www.admissions.umich.edu/prospective/prospectivefreshmen/appreview.php)
Cheers.</p>