<p>Kind of self explanatory question, just something I want to know</p>
<p>Er, all colleges across the country are more competitive. More and more people apply every year. It’s not like colleges are expanding like crazy.</p>
<p>It is a top research university and they are constrained bu the number of beds in their dorms. Same as every other top university.</p>
<p>UMich isn’t super selective. Admission isn’t automatic obviously but there are still lots of people who get in ever year, and lots more who could if they choose to apply. Most Michigan student/alumni aren’t geniuses. </p>
<p>It is somewhat selective though because if it wasn’t selective it would damage the reputation of the school and could mean fewer employers recruit from there. People want to go to school with the best and the brightest, and if Michigan can’t get even close to that they’re not going to as easily get the kind of money they do from tuitions to support that. Would you pay UMich-level tuition to go to Eastern? </p>
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<p>If this was the only concern then they’d offer spots to anyone who didn’t need to live in the dorm. Since they don’t do that, there’s something else. </p>
<p>If you mean what allows the university to be selective: 1) incredible physical resources (libraries, physical collections buildings, labs, and now refurbished dorms; 2) a faculty which by citations, citation strength, and major prizes/awards routinely ranks in the top 5 in the country; 3) 100 programs in the top 10 nationally; 4) aggregate graduate strength which ranks it 4th in the country; 5) despite efforts by some to poor-mouth the undergraduate division, that division has been recently ranked #6 for teaching quality…sharing many of the same professors as the graduate program; 6) opportunities at the undergraduate level to do research and potentially gain a hook into those top graduate programs; 7) flight to quality…as the value of an education comes under increasing attack, and with the rise of MOOCs, real bricks-and-mortar institutions with good/excellent reputations are experiencing a flood of applications; Michigan has set 8 consecutive records for application growth; this process feeds on itself because students want the best and to be the best; even with increased applications, the yield has remained steady and average qualifications go up every year; 8) due to wealthy alums and great endowment money management, an increase in student aid while other schools are suffering from cuts; 9) a decrease in the student/teacher ratio as other schools are going in the other direction; 10) a visibly successful alumni body and the connectivity that goes with that.</p>
<p>From looking at the common data set, the enrolled (not admitted, but kids actually on campus), 63% of the kids enter with a composite ACT score which is equal to or higher than the 25th percentile Ivy score. Given that Michigan is 3 times the size of the average Ivy, that means that for every kid at an Ivy above that percentile, there are 2.5 kids at Michigan with the same or better scores. </p>
<p>Finally, while the out of state tuition is pretty formidable, it still represents “value” (bang for buck) relative to many private schools, including private elites. Any kid who enters/exits Michigan above the 25th precentile will probably do OK. Kids entering/exiting in the top quartile have the possibility of doing almost anything…attending good/elite graduate schools…breaking into their chosen profession…</p>
<p>Vladenschlutte, for Michigan residents, I would agree that Michigan is not “super selective”, and probably never will be since it will probably always admit enough residents to keep the IS/OSS ratio at 1:1 or higher. That being said, it is still very selective for Michigan residents.</p>
<p>However, for OSS and international students, Michigan is “super selective”. It is now pretty common for applicants that are rejected by Michigan to get into peer schools like Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern and Penn among others.</p>
<p>Chamelean, in additional to Blue85’s excellent points, I would like to add a couple of points which speak to why many students really like the University of Michigan and are applying in large numbers:</p>
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<li><p>While blue85 mentioned Michigan’s excellent academic programs ranging across many disciplines, two programs that are attracting many top students from around the world are the College of Engineering (ranked among the top 10 in the country) and Ross (ranked among the top 5 undergraduate business programs in the nation with solid connections to all major industries, including Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Management Consulting). Michigan also has an excellent placement record into top Law and Medical schools, thanks in part to its own Law and Medical schools each admitting over 70 Michigan alumni annually.</p></li>
<li><p>Michigan athletics. Michigan football is one of the top 5 college football programs with the tradition to back it up. It is currently not as good as it should be (barely a top 30 team) but it will eventually return to its rightful place. Michigan basketball has improved in recent years and is now back to where it should be. Hockey is excellent most years. These athletic programs bring students together and foster school spirit very nicely. Some students do not care for sports, and they do not have to participate by any means, but many come to Michigan to be part of such traditions.</p></li>
<li><p>Ann Arbor is an awesome college town. Some students really prefer being I a major urban area, and clearly, Michigan is not ideal for them. However, many students prefer going to university in a college town environment, and it does not get better than Ann Arbor. I have lived in many major cities, including Paris, London, Berlin and Dubai and have spent a lot of time in other major cities, like Chicago, DC, NYC and San Francisco, and while very different, Ann Arbor was no less special to me.</p></li>
<li><p>The campus is very vibrant. There are things that a school with 27,000 undergrads can accomplish that a university with 6,000-10,000 undergrads simply cannot. That includes a multitude of clubs, a level of intellectual and social diversity and a degree of energy and school spirit mixed in with high-powered academics and intense intellectual drive that cannot be duplicated anywhere else.</p></li>
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<p>There are many reasons why students like Michigan, and the competition for the few OOS and international students that will be admitted (relative to the number of applicants) will only get worse with time.</p>
<p>What does super selective mean? ACT above 32? I know from my high school everyone that got in had a 30+ ACT. I think it’s super selective for in state students that are not legacies. But I know plenty of Metro Detroit legacies are getting in with 25-28 ACTs. see: frat and sorority row</p>
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<p>Since only 33% of undergraduates live on-campus, the number of beds can’t be a significant constraint. And if it were, they could just build more dorms. If Michigan wanted to get bigger, it could easily do so. It currently has 27,000 undergrads. Just up the road in East Lansing, Michigan State has 37,000 undergrads. Down the road in Columbus, Ohio State has 43,000 undergrads. Why? Because Michigan State and Ohio State had a greater capacity to add dorm beds? Of course not. Michigan State and Ohio State simply made different decisions about how big they wanted to get. Both schools have higher student-faculty ratios, more large classes, and fewer small classes than Michigan. They are also significantly less selective than Michigan, both in admit rates (64% at Ohio State, 71% at MSU, 36.6% at Michigan in 2012) and in entering class stats (OSU middle 50% ACT 26-30; MSU middle 50% ACT 23-28; Michigan middle 50% ACT 28-32).</p>
<p>Michigan is very selective because it’s a great university with a great reputation and near-universal name recognition, a lot of students want to come there, and enrollment is capped at a level that guarantees that more applicants will be rejected than admitted, which allows the school to be quite choosy about who it admits. And its applicant pool is growing all the time. That growth isn’t coming from in-state applicants, whose numbers are stagnant or even declining slightly along with a flat state population and an aging in-state demographic. The growth is entirely among OOS and international applicants. As its admit rate declines, it only become more desirable to certain OOS and international applicants for whom selectivity is a positive criterion in its own right. Selectivity thus becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, as it is with Ivy League and certain other elite private colleges and universities.</p>
<p>97% of freshmen live in dorm and the space is indeed limited. It is short of 300 this year that they need to convince some return students to move to apartments in order to make more rooms for freshmen. Building more dorms on campus is easier to say than actually doing that. However, limited dorm space should not be only constrain although it is more visible.</p>