<p>Where do you get “animosity” from? The existence of many smart Michigan vals, etc. who go to other state colleges aside from Michigan doesn’t mean they have “animosity” towards it; they just aren’t interested in it for whatever reason. </p>
<p>Schmaltz is absolutely spot-on. The people in the state of Michigan who go to Michigan aren’t going to Michigan because they think OMG-it’s-practically-an-Ivy-but-cheaper-to-me; they go there because it’s a good value and they like it, and where you go to school isn’t the be-all-and-end-all as it is elsewhere in the nation.</p>
<p>Well, Pizzagirl, animosity was probably not the best choice of words. I do understand that the public schools in the midwest tend to be very popular as they are in Virginia. I was just curious about Michigan, that’s all. Are you saying that instate kids that have the stats to go to Michigan are instead going to much lower ranked instate schools by choice?(and I don’t mean schools like Michigan State-I mean like Central Michigan,EMU,etc.) I don’t think you would see that as much in Virginia. If they stay instate, most of the high stats kids will gravitate to UVa, W & M or possibly VT for engineering.</p>
<p>UVa could offer aid to OOS because few needed aid. What they forgot about was adverse selection where all of a sudden more qualified poor students from OOS applied. The cost went to high and now the program is about to be curtailed.</p>
<p>I had heard that too barrons about UVa cutting back the program for OOS kids. I almost posted that earlier but couldn’t remember where I had heard it from and didn’t want to post something I wasn’t sure about.</p>
<p>That’s an exceptionally low rate of students on need-based aid, though. It’s really not the “same” as the Ivies; UVA’s OOS student body skews much wealthier than the Ivies. At Harvard 62% of undergrads get need-based FA. At Princeton, 59%; Yale 57%; Dartmouth 54%; Columbia 52%; Cornell 48%; Penn 46%; Brown 46%. And it’s not just the Ivies; at most top private schools, somewhere around half of the undergrads receive need-based FA. Virginia’s 20% (for OOS) is a striking contrast.</p>
<p>Michigan isn’t all that much higher, 31% of OOS students receiving need-based aid (compared to 49% in-state). But you’d expect their relative positions to be reversed: Michigan doesn’t meet 100% of need for OOS students, so you’d expect the OOS admitted students who decide to attend would skew more toward full-pays, But UVA says it meets 100% of need for everyone, OOS as well as in-state; you’d expect, then, that their OOS student population would be more reflective of the range of income levels youj get at top private schools, but that’s clearly not the case. It’s a bit of mystery, as far as I’m concerned. Could it be that their definition of “need” is less generous, so that most of the applicants from lower and middle income brackets are getting more generous FA offers elsewhere? Or are they not need-blind in admissions? (And do they even claim to be?) Is it something about the culture of the place that the less affluent find off-putting? I’m just grasping at straws here, but it seems really odd.</p>
<p>At UNC-Chapel Hill, another of the few public universities that claim to meet 100% of need for OOS students, it looks like 34% of OOS students get some form of need-based FA. That’s less than the top privates and only a tad more than Michigan, but substantially more than UVA. Similar prestige, same general region, similar towns in some ways, similar costs and (at least nominally) similar FA policies, yet different outcomes. Explanations? Hypotheses?</p>
<p>In response to the above comments, UVa’s Board of Visitors has hired a consultant to review financial aid policies and related enrollment policies in response to increased demand for financial aid. That is all that has been made public at this time.</p>
<p>Thanks,charlieschm for clarifying that.
Financial services say that 33% altogether are getting some form of financial aid.
UVa’s OOS cost is less than an Ivy so maybe that effects need at UVa if the cost is less to begin with. I think the Ivies have been trying to attract less affluent kids for some time now. Maybe UVa is a little later moving more in that direction. Don’t know. In general, most state schools have a primary responsibility to their citizens. Jefferson envisioned a university that would attract students from all over so that UVa has had more OOS kids historically than lots of other state schools. Up to a 1/3 are OOS.</p>
<p>I don’t know for sure, but it’s certainly plausible. Schmaltz has said it several times - there isn’t as much of an OMG-how-could-a-smart-kid-go-to-directional-in-state-schools in the midwest as there is elsewhere. The flagships can get anyone wherever he or she needs to go, and everyone - EVERYONE - knows bright, successful people who went to directional state flagships and do just fine.</p>
<p>I only half-agree with Schmaltz. I think most of the highest-stats kids in Michigan do go to either Michigan or Michigan State (more to Michigan, but a strong contingent to Michigan State). It’s nowhere near 100%. Some end up at private schools either in-state or out-of-state. Lots of high-achieving kids from affluent suburbs like Grosse Pointe or Bloomfield Hills have their sights set on the Ivies or other elite privates, but most in this group will also apply to Michigan as a back-up. Northwestern and Notre Dame draw a fair number of kids from Michigan. Some prefer small schools. Some will go to other state schools. It’s a big state geographically and many kids, including top students, elect to stay closer to home. (Little-known fact: Ann Arbor is closer to Washington, DC than to the western end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; lots of UP kids go to Michigan Tech or Northern Michigan). Some top students also elect to go to a commuter school to save money by living at home. But most (though certainly not all) of the top students will apply to Michigan, whether or not it’s their top choice.</p>
<p>Here’s where I disagree with Schmaltz: it’s not because Michigan is losing so many top in-state students to other schools that it has a high admit rate. Quite the opposite. It’s well-known in the state as a great school, but also the most expensive of the in-state options, and the hardest to get into unless you have great stats. So there’s an enormous amount of self-selection that goes on. My own experience is ancient history, but I know a lot of people in Michigan and I don’t think it’s much different today. I graduated from a small HS in northern Michigan. Two kids from my HS applied to Michigan–the val (me) and the sal. We were both accepted, for a 100% admit rate from our school. Of the next 10 top students, 4 went to Michigan State (either believing they wouldn’t get into Michigan or just having a preference for Michigan State, or both). Most of the students in my HS class who went to college went to public universities closer to home, though a few were scattered farther afield.</p>
<p>My wife went to a top public HS in suburban Detroit. Different demographics, but a similar self-selection: maybe half a dozen or so from her class went to Ivies or other elite privates; of the top 10%, a strong majority went to Michigan, but quite a few to Michigan State. </p>
<p>With all that self-selection, Michigan’s in-state applicant pool isn’t all that large. And of course, Michigan’s inability to meet 100% of need for OOS students drives down its yield among OOS admits, pushing up its overall admit rate.</p>
<p>In comparison, ~33% of matriculants at each UC campus receive Pell grants, i.e., low-low income. UVa is 11%, up from 7% just a few years ago; Michigan 16%. But then, UC has given big bonus points in admissions for being low income for a long time. Perhaps UVa has just started to do the same? But the downside, which UVa has to recognize, is that admitting more low income kids, means less middle/upper classers (many of which are likely from Northern Va?).</p>
<p>I know this whole topic of comparison is not very important to students and parents, but here is US News’ compilation of yield rates as of a year or two.</p>
<p>According to that list, UVa’s yield is higher than Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Berkeley, U Michigan, U. Chicago, Cal Tech, USC, Northwestern, Duke and Johns Hopkins. UVa’s yield was only a couple points lower than Cornell’s.</p>
<p>Maybe California has a much larger low income immigrant population than Virginia does? Not sure. UVa is much smaller than many of the really big flagships(like about 14,000 undergrads). It does have an historical, somewhat preppy vibe.
And thank you for your added comments about Michigan,bclintonk. I was just not understanding Schmaltz assertion that all these high stats kids in Michigan were paying Michigan no mind.It just wasn’t computing.</p>
<p>“Lots of high-achieving kids from affluent suburbs like Grosse Pointe or Bloomfield Hills have their sights set on the Ivies or other elite privates, but most in this group will also apply to Michigan as a back-up.”</p>
<p>Agree, but those suburbs are a tiny and anomalous minority, and even at their high schools the majority go to in-state colleges. I spent a couple years at a small-town high school about an hour from Detroit. Valedictorian went to her first choice–Central Michigan U. Consensus smartest kid in our class got into Michigan but went to Michigan State. Most driven kid went to Michigan. Really smart and personable kid went to MSU (and years later, his smart son wouldn’t even consider UofM because his family was green and white instead of maize and blue, and chose between MSU and a service academy). Intellectual girl went to Kalamazoo. Lots of smart kids went to local community college. From what I’ve seen, that’s a pretty representative sample, and is far from how CollegeConfidential folks probably assume things work in Michigan (i.e., everybody takes a shot at Ann Arbor, and goes elsewhere only if they don’t get in).</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound like “everybody” takes a shot at Ann Arbor but that lots of top kids seem to gravitate to Michigan and Michigan State. That sounds pretty typical of lots of states. And many states have rivalries like a Michigan-Michigan State one where a kid won’t consider the other college. In all states, there will always be kids that want to stay closer to home and will go to a local university,or will go to community college because of finances, or will end up at a private somewhere. There are probably more similarities than differences with this stuff.</p>
<p>Yes, there’s a lot of this, Many MSU alums are fiercely proud of their school—and there’s a lot to be proud of, frankly–and they tend to bring up their kids with green-and-white flowing in their veins. Some of those kids wouldn’t dream of applying to Michigan. And many on the opposite side of that equation, of course.</p>
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<p>Sure, there are a few high-stats kids at almost any college, but if you take a close look at the numbers, it’s pretty clear that most of the in-state kids with top stats end up at Michigan or, secondarily, Michigan State.</p>
<p>Look at the percentage of the entering class with ACT scores in the 30-36 range.</p>
<p>At Michigan, 45% of an entering class of 6,496 are in the 30-36 range = 2,923 students.
At MSU, it’s about 15% of 7,375 = 1,106
Michigan Tech (#115 in US News): 20% of 1,115 = 223
Western Michigan (#181): 5% of 3,398 =170
Central Michigan (unranked): 4% of 4,173 = 167
Oakland U (unranked): 3% of 2,311 = 69</p>
<p>Most of the other “directionals” are going to be in the 1% to 4% range; that is, there will be a smattering of top standardized test scorers everywhere, but by overwhelming numbers the big concentration is at Michigan, followed by Michigan State with a pretty strong cohort and little Michigan Tech gamely battling for its share, but after that just really small numbers at the other state schools.</p>
<p>Kalamazoo College? Sure, good little liberal arts college, ranked #68 LAC by US News. Entering class of 342, of whom 35% have ACT scores in the 30-36 range, so that’s another 120 kids, of whom quite a few will be from out of state.</p>
<p>And remember, some of those top test-scorers scattered around all these other schools won’t have top GPAs or class ranks. Apply to Michigan with a 30 ACT and a 3.5 GPA and you probably won’t get in; apply to Central Michigan or Wayne State with those stats and you’re golden. For that matter, an applicant with those stats would be a likely admit at Kalamazoo College (3.4-3.9 middle 50% GPA, 24-30 middle 50% ACT, 75% admit rate). </p>
<p>I think the numbers paint a picture closer to the CC stereotype than to the counter-narrative you’re trying to advance here.</p>
Well, just a minute. I agree that Harvard, MIT, and Stanford probably aren’t admitting many more students in order to get enough students. But isn’t that because their yield remains extremely high? I would think that it might be a very different story for schools further down the pecking order. (In other words, whether you apply to 5 schools or 20, if you get into Harvard, you’re probably going there. But if you apply to 20 schools, and get into 7 of them, that lowers the yield of the 6 you don’t go to compared to a previous era in which people only applied to 5 schools).</p>
<p>At UVa and most other colleges, international students are not eligible for financial aid from the university. The percentage of out of state students at UVa who are international students has dramatically increased. That trend would skew the data for $ of out of state students receiving financial aid, as referenced above.</p>
<p>In addition to meeting 100% of documented need for all US students, UVa is also need blind in admissions - even for waiting list students. That combination is not common. Of course, most colleges do not have the benefit of a $5 billion endowment.</p>
<p>I have seen figures of 5% and 5.8% for the number of undergraduate international students at UVa for recent classes. They have been trying to increase those numbers, I believe. Are there other figures I’ve missed somewhere about the number of international students? What numbers do you have,charlieschm?</p>
<p>The figure I have is that UVA’s undergrad student body is 6.27% international, Michigan is 6.04% international, and they don’t give need-based aid to international students, either. UNC-Chapel Hill is only 2.66% international, but since UNC is only 18% OOS while Michigan and UVA are both roughly double that, internationals make up a pretty similar percentage of UNC’s OOS students. As between the three schools, I don’t think these minor differences in the number or percentage of international students would go very far in explaining the anomaly of UVA’s extremely low percentage of OOS students receiving need-based FA. </p>
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<p>It’s true that OOS COA at UVA is a few thousand dollars less than at many elite privates, and that will increase the fraction of full-pays in the student body. Basically, anyone with an EFC at or above UVA’s COA will be a full-pay at UVA, but that same student would get some financial aid at an elite private as long as their EFC is less than the elite private’s COA. So you’d expect a somewhat lower percentage of UVA OOS students to get FA in comparison to the private schools.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t explain the difference between UVA and Michigan, much less between UVA and UNC-Chapel Hill. I don’t have total COA figures handy, but OOS tuition at Michigan and UVA is almost identical, just a few hundred dollars different. And UNC-Chapel Hill’s OOS tuition is about $10K cheaper than UVA or Michigan. So other things equal, you’d expect that of the three schools, UNC-Chapel Hill would have the lowest percentage of OOS students with financial need. Yet 34% of UNC’s OOS students get need-based FA, compared to 20% for UVA and 31% for Michigan. </p>