Why do so few Michigan residents apply to UM?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
1

I am trying to understand why only ~10000-11000 Michigan HS graduates apply to UM? This is just about 10% of the HS grads in Michigan
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/03/05/high-school-graduation-rates-michigan/24454969/

Michigan state University receives about 33K applications (they do not breakdown by IS vs OOS applicants, but only report that 10% of enrolled students are OOS)
http://opb.msu.edu/institution/documents/CDS_2014-2015.pdf

In-state applicants: ~11000 for UM and ~30000 for MSU
In-state acceptance rate: ~50% for UM and ~65% for MSU.
In-state enrolled students: ~3800 for UM and ~7200 for MSU

I have heard self-selection bias mentioned on these forums and elsewhere. Is this rooted in socio-economic status of applicants or is UM considered elite and does it marginalize certain segments of the population?

No political angle, just trying to understand the numbers and makeup of the university as an OOSer.

2

UMich is self selecting to some degree. I think if you look up the middle 50% for the class of 2018 and look up the ACT state report you will find that there aren’t as many michigan high school seniors that fall into that range and therefore choose to apply to Michigan. Michigan State’s range is lower and Michigan State always picks up a good percentage of high scoring students.

Also your SES status doesn’t make sense to me. Michigan meets full need of in state students. State does not.

3

It is not just a matter of self-selection, although that does play a role, but also of college advising. High school counselors in Michigan have traditionally discouraged students with GPAs below a certain point from applying to the University of Michigan. You won’t see many in-state students apply to Michigan with sub 3.7 GPAs.

4

Ignore high school counselors - my neighbor’s daughter turned down a full ride at U of M, to attend Dartmouth. Her advisor thought that U of M would be a stretch for her???

5

I think advisors have been shell shocked the past couple years from the quirky in-state acceptance patterns.

6

UMDAD2018, these days, Michigan is a stretch, regardless of your academic credentials. Some students are denied admission while others, with similar credentials, are offered hefty scholarships. Like any university with extremely selective admissions, the line that separates successful applicants to Michigan from unsuccessful applicants is non-existent.

7

Self-selection is a big part of it. That was true even back in my day, in the 1970s, when Michigan’s admissions standards weren’t as high as they are now; only 2 people from my small 120-person HS class in northern Michigan applied, and we were both accepted. Six or seven applied to Michigan State, most of them thinking they had no chance of being admitted to Michigan; the rest of those who went to college mostly applied to and attended other state schools. Self-selection tends to be strongly reinforced by HS counselors who in most Michigan HSs tend to steer kids toward state schools and to segregate them by grades and test scores, encouraging the very top tier to apply to Michigan, the next group to apply to Michigan State (or in some cases Michigan Tech if they’re interested in engineering), and everyone else to “directionals.”

But I think there are other factors, too. I don’t think the Admissions office does a particularly good job of recruiting even the top in-state students, except at a handful of well-established “feeder” schools in Ann Arbor itself and in the more affluent Detroit suburbs, and perhaps to some extent in the Grand Rapids area. I don’t think they do a good job with inner-city recruitment, and I don’t think they do a good job of recruiting in rural and small-town Michigan, or even in Michigan’s second-tier cities. Michigan State draws a much more geographically and socio-economically balanced class from around the state, even though Michigan meets full need for in-state students and MSU doesn’t. (Perhaps one of the reasons Michigan can meet full need and MSU can’t is that Michigan has a much smaller in-state class and relatively few of Michigan’s in-state students have very much need). Because that’s been true for a long time, it also means there are stronger MSU family, alumni, and peer networks in those communities, generating subsequent rounds of applicants. And because Michigan’s student body skews more affluent, even among in-state students but especially among the OOS students who can afford to pay much higher OOS tuition without the University meeting full need, there’s a perception in some quarters of the state that Michigan is “elitist”–not just in its admissions and academic standards, but socio-economically as well. And that’s off-putting to some people. A lot of those people end up at MSU (and it ends up coloring the Michigan-Michigan State sports rivalry, too, with MSU students and fans regularly hurling accusations that Michigan students and fans are “arrogant” and “elitist”).

8

Another possible factor: Michigan’s economy has been struggling for a long time, especially since the 2007-08 financial meltdown but in many ways since the 1970s. That’s inclined a lot of Michigan HS students (and their parents) to seek a quick payoff from a college education through a vocationally oriented major that (they hope) leads directly to a job after graduation. Michigan offers fewer such majors, and some of those it does offer, like business and engineering, are extremely competitive programs with extremely high admissions standards. Michigan State offers some vocationally oriented undergraduate majors that aren’t offered at all at Michigan, like agriculture (3.8% of MSU Bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2014), engineering technologies (2.3%), family and consumer sciences (1.8%), legal studies (1.0%), and homeland security/law enforcement (2.3%). That’s over 10% of MSU’s graduating class right there. Another 17.3% of MSU-awarded Bachelor’s degrees in 2014 were in business and marketing, in contrast to only 5.9% of Michigan’s. And in other vocationally-oriented majors offered by both schools, those at MSU are generally more heavily subscribed, e.g., communications/journalism (MSU 11.1%, UM 2.8%), education (MSU 3.1%, UM 1.2%), parks & recreation (MSU 3.5%, UM 2.8%), public administration/social services (MSU 1.1%, UM 0.8%), and health professions (MSU 5.2%, UM 3.1%). The big exceptions are engineering (UM 16.0%, MSU 6.2%) and computer/information sciences (UM 4.1%, MSU 1.0%), though even there, given MSU’s larger class size and higher percentage of in-state students, there are probably similar numbers of Michigan residents in each school’s engineering programs.

Meanwhile, a higher percentage of Michigan’s undergraduate degrees are in more purely academic disciplines like Social Sciences (UM 14.3%, MSU 11.2%), Psychology (UM 10.2%, MSU 4.7%), Foreign languages/literatures/linguistics (UM 4.3%, MSU 1.4%), English (UM 3.2%, MSU 2.0% ), Math (UM 3.0%, MSU 1.2%), History (UM 2.2%, MSU 1.0%).

This reinforces stereotypes on both sides. Michigan students tend to see MSU as an intellectual backwater, basically just an oversized vocational school with lower academic standards. MSU students tend to see Michigan as a pretentious, elitist, arrogant, ivory tower institution, not built to serve the economic needs of the broad middle of Michigan’s population, and not a particularly good place to go to prepare yourself to land a job straight out of undergraduate studies, unless you can get into the highly competitive Ross or engineering schools. And in times of economic anxiety, the latter view appeals to many, especially among the less affluent who feel they can’t afford the luxury of 4 years following one’s muse or delaying financial rewards until after a graduate degree.

9

I 100% agree with @bclintonk.

I grew up as a high achieving but low income student in the Detroit metro area. U of M always came off to me as being very economically elite and, to be honest, as a low income/first gen student, Michigan came off to me as much colder and less welcoming than MSU. This seems to be changing (slowly) due to some grass-roots efforts by first gen students. Many of my friends who were in the same situation I was in didn’t bother to apply because they liked MSU better for a variety of reasons.

And while it is correct that MSU doesn’t meet need, for very low income students there is the Spartan Advantage which does meet need.

Finally, even if U of M “meets need” there are many, many people with a poor understanding of how the financial aid process works and the sticker price can make them balk. That wouldn’t divert them to MSU necessarily (though it might as MSU can have better merit scholarships) but it might divert them to local directionals.

Fwiw, I was just having a conversation about why low income students don’t go to U of M with a bio professor. She said that a few years ago, some of her fellow STEM profs started personally reaching out to admitted low income/first gen students in order to encourage them to come to U of M. While that doesn’t help the application numbers, it might eventually as more and more low income/first gen kids go due to these contacts.

10

UM isn’t that much less selective than dartmouth. It may be an “ivy” but HYP it is not. A killer essay and letters of rec, which most GCs don’t even get to see, can make the diff.

11

@bclintonk, you’re exactly right. Coming from a rural area, they sent one rep to a jr college to answer questions from high schoolers for the entire county, and they were clearly scripted answers when possible. They don’t give a damn about rural areas, so long as they can advertise “students from all 82 counties, 50 states etc”

Which as soon as you arrive campus, you realize is a pretty worthless novelty

12

Oh about the “elitist” thing, yes it’s true, but that’s jealousy speaking too. There was some study about where applicants ended up and roughly 90% who got into both UM and MSU ended up at UM. There are some valid concerns about fit at any school. I would not fit in at notre dame for instance. However, excepting a few programs, UM offers by far the best value for in-state schools, so if high school seniors don’t apply, 90% of time it’s because they know they can’t get in. This should really be indisputable. Just compare the scores of enrolled students and it’s obvious that by and large, michigan high school seniors are not rejecting UM, but the other way around. That has been the case since WW2 at least

@bclintonk, those numbers include double majors, which is extremely common here. Tons of students major in the subject they have most interest in AND a field with better professional prospects. This is why very few opt for the BGS degree, cause it prohibits double majors. Also by offering up ross/engineering as the only ‘worthwhile’ degrees, you’re completing ignoring that several hundreds go into STEM from LSA (which is most common for premed)

But what’s truly hilarious is your counter examples at MSU include well, pardon me, but with less than 1% of occupations now being in farming, i don’t think an agriculture degree is foolproof, nor can i imagine the direct utility in “family and consumer sciences.” I mean, that sounds like the social science degrees you’re mocking. Journalism degree? Gee, i wonder why that wouldn’t be a hot major at UM. Maybe because in the one journalism class i took (not at UM), the prof opened with “There’s no money in it.” Law studies? What do you think tons of english or history majors here go into? Likewise you contend that “social services” degree is directly professional, but again tons of social science majors here go into MSW programs or directly into social service.

In addition, many of those STEM majors at MSU, the classes do not prepare them as well. I perused a Calc exam put online recently and yeah, it’s a pretty big joke by comparison. That’s not to say there aren’t bright students there, but they aren’t occupying as many seats in the class

Serving the needs of michigan’s economy? No kidding, no one here wants to remain in this backwater state that contributes less and less to the public universities, and most get the hell out quickly after graduating. MSU grads would gladly do so as well, make no mistake. Even from a purely self-interest perspective - i.e. not “elitism” - it doesn’t make any sense to eek out a life in this state, when there’s far better opportunities elsewhere. You can’t be taken seriously if you’re suggesting that, all things being equal (same major, same grades), a UM degree isn’t more valuable, not to mention that, being a state resident, it’s far cheaper for me to attend UM than MSU. One offered a full ride in grants (plus work study), the other offered only loans.

Your assessment of the situation - “the less affluent who feel they can’t afford the luxury of 4 years following one’s muse” - comes across as hyperbole. It’s like you’re comparing living at home and attending jr college, to living in dorms at colleges that give only loans, or an OOS admit deciding between $60k/year at UM vs in state school. Those would be a financially driven decision. What’s a no-brainer is being a poor kid from michigan choosing between UM and any other state school.

13

@roman, Despite the arguable return on invest on college education in general these days, the one circumstance where it’s without question still capable of lifting people into a higher economic class is for poor kids getting degrees from elite schools. No one in the lower class is thinking “this elite school that can lift me out of poverty for the first time in my life comes across as cold, screw it!”

Yeah, i can’t afford to dress as well as the “middle class” kids from $2 million sillicon valley homes. Some of them wouldn’t give me the time of day. What an unbearable loss! /s

Way to generalize 40,000 people. If 90% of them are ‘economically elite,’ there you have thousands of others to befriend. Truly most from the upper class do not care though. We’re wolverines, first and foremost

14

Wow, steellord, you definitely seem like you have a bone to pick.
I forgot, some select few believe that to criticize Michigan, in anyway, is blasphemous. 8-|

Look, I’ll have spent much longer at U of M than the vast majority of people. I’ll have 3 U of M degrees and am indebted to U of M on many, many levels. That does not change how I felt as a 17/18 year old picking a college. And still, several years later, I stick by those feelings and have no regrets (I do not believe you are legitimately a new poster but if you are, I did not go to U of M for undergrad). In many ways, I am glad that I had that experience. It gives me motivation to work closely with kids who were in my situation. Almost every undergrad who has stayed long-term on my research team is a first gen student.

15

@steellord,

You misconstrue me quite badly. I never said an MSU education was a better value, nor did I say that the vocational choices of MSU students were well-informed. I’m just saying, in response to a question about why so many more Michigan residents apply to MSU than UM, that there’s a certain way that many economically insecure people view a college education, and the University of Michigan’s profile is, well, more challenging to a lot of those people than is MSU’s. At MSU a far higher percentage of undergrads are enrolled in “practical” majors like actuarial science, apparel and textiles, food science, dietetics, and packaging–majors that may or may not lead to jobs, but even if there are jobs, many of the jobs will be neither particularly well paying nor particularly satisfying work. Others think they’re doing something “practical” by studying things like journalism, oblivious (or willfully obtuse) to the fact that jobs in that field are increasingly scarce, highly competitive, and in most cases low-paying. I could say the same about certain STEM fields at either school; bio majors, for example, tend not to do well in the job market unless they go beyond their undergrad training to acquire advanced degrees in medicine, some other health profession, or more rarely, a Ph.D. in some bio specialty.

My own view is diametrically opposed to such narrow careerist thinking. I was a philosophy major at Michigan, and my life has turned out quite well. My older daughter was (with my support and encouragement) a classics major at a leading LAC, and my younger daughter is an art history major at another leading LAC. Who knows what career paths they will ultimately follow, but I’m not particularly worried about it because they’ve both acquired critical reasoning, critical reading, analytical, and written and oral communication and argumentation skills that will serve them well whatever they end up doing. Cream rises, and relative to the vast majority of college grads, they’re the cream. Call me an elitist. Call me the last believer in the value of a traditional liberal education. One of the reasons–perhaps the most important reason–that I continue to love and support my undergraduate alma mater is that the pure academic flame is still alive and well there, at a time when it is being snuffed out at lesser institutions, and there’s clearly public support for such snuffing out. Frankly, your suggestion that today’s Michigan students are as narrowly careerist as MSU’s students is discouraging news to me. I only hope you’re wrong.

16

I do not think careers, socio-economic (the two schools cost roughly the same for residents) or “fit” is a primary (or secondary for that matter) reason for the relatively low number of applicants. Sure it plays a small role, but in my opinion, it is negligible. Selectivity is the main reason, and by a large margin. Any student with a 3.2+ GPA and a 21+ on the ACT has a shot at MSU. That would include a large chunk of each class at most high schools in the state. To have a shot at Michigan, a student must have at least a 3.6 GPA with a 27 or higher in the ACT. That pretty much excludes the majority of the students in most high schools in the state.

17

Interesting points everyone. Two questions:

  • Is the (absolute) number of instate students capped by any legislative rule or does UM need to enroll students maintaining a certain percent of seats for instate students?
  • I could not find any admitted student profile breakdown of IS vs OOS. I see that UM's academic requirements are clearly above MSU, is there any data that shows the difference in IS vs OOS students at UM? It is hard to reconcile the difference in acceptance rates (~50% IS vs ~25% OOS) by applicant bias alone. In other words, are the average IS applicant's stats lower than the combined average (given a 60/40::IS/OOS ratio, that does not seem far fetched)? Is this inflated average keeping away more IS high-schoolers from applying?
18

No.

Not as far as I am aware.

U of M is first a foremost an institution for Michigan residents. Thus, Michigan students get a boost in the application process.

19

The Michigan legislature has very little authority over the University of Michigan, which under the Michigan constitution is governed by an independent, elected governing body, the Board of Regents, which “shall have general supervision of its institution and the control and direction of all expenditures from the institution’s funds.” Article VIII sec. 5. The legislature’s only assigned constitutional role is to “appropriate moneys to maintain” the University; however, the University must make an annual accounting to the legislature for how such funds are spent. Article VIII sec. 4. Michigan courts have said this establishes “constitutional autonomy” for the University, and strictly limits the power of the legislature and state bureaucrats to meddle in University policies, including admissions policies. At an informal level, however, it’s sound practice for the University not to ruffle the legislature’s feathers too much, because the legislature does have power to increase or decrease its appropriation to the University. At this point legislative appropriations represent only 6% or so of the University’s total operating budget, but it’s a 6% that isn’t easily replaced as other funding sources are already tapped to full capacity.

That’s a closely guarded secret. The Admissions office could easily break down entering class stats by in-state and OOS, but it doesn’t do so, at least not publicly. A lot of OOS students suspect the stats of in-state students are lower overall, or at least at the bottom end. Admissions officers sometimes deny this, but they don’t back it up with hard data. I’m not sure. The difference could be that if you’re a Michigan resident and the Admissions committee thinks you’re truly well qualified, you’re just in, whereas for OOS students you need to be not only good but lucky because there are so many well qualified OOS applicants that the Admissions committee knows it can’t admit all of them, so it just cherry-picks among many equally well qualified OOS applicants. Or it could be that the OOS applicant pool is on average actually less qualified, because OOS applicants are less self-selective–many think it should be relatively easy to get into a large state flagship, and many OOS guidance counselors may not realize just how selective Michigan is, so the school gets a ton of OOS applicants with less than stellar credentials who, if they were Michigan residents, would be told not to bother to apply to Michigan. Or both things could be true, because the OOS applicant pool is just so huge. We just have no way of knowing

20

I have no issue with this. I also believe it is fair that MI residents get lower tuition since they have paid indirectly through taxes.

The reason I was looking to understand IS vs OOS stats is to see if the stats of the IS numbers is pulled up by the larger (and more competitive) OOS pool and this obfuscation is hurting the IS students by presenting a higher barrier than that exists. If UM is not elitist and truly wants to increase IS applicants I would think the best encouragement would be to present a realistic view.

It is possible that UM is fully aware of all of this and the data shows no appreciable difference in stats…