<p>U-M has a 52% admit rate, which seems to be moderately selective at best. UVA, for example has 39%. Given that U-M is such a good school, how come it's accepting over half the applicants?</p>
<p>What's the in-state v. out-state application ratio and admissions rate for each?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>i believe it's 62% isn't it?</p>
<p>UM is a big school. Lots of people apply, and its admissions criteria is quite high, but there are also many spots so that translates into what seems like an easier admit rate than other schools.</p>
<p>Michigan's students are every bit as talented as UVA students, but since we're larger and have a slightly stronger applicant pool, our students are just as good and it isn't any "easier" to get into umich than UVA. The in state to out-of-state ratio is almost exaclty 2:1, and I think acceptance rate for out of state is slightly lower (maybe 5-10%). This may not be true, but i do know that the avg OOS student has slightly better test scores, GPA, etc.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate is higher because UM's yield is lower than comparable schools. That is, students who are admitted to Michigan tend to matriculated at a lower rate. In order to fill the class, the admissions office is forced to admit more students. If we had a 60 or 70% yield rate (which is what I think we're headed towards), you'd see the admit rate go down markedly.</p>
<p>KB</p>
<p>I don't think that's necessarily accurate KB. Michigan's yield rate is 45%. That's comparable to Cornell and Johns Hopkins and better than the University of Chicago. Only a handful of universities have yield rates over 50%. The military academies, the Ivies minus Cornell, a couple of LACs, maybe MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>The main problem is class size. Michigan Freshmen classes have hovered around 6,000 for the last couple of years. With a yield rate of 45%, that means Michigan has accepted 13,000 applicants each of the last 2 years. Most universities of equal caliber have Freshman classes of under 4,000. In fact, only Cornell and Cal have Freshman classes over 2,500 (but under 4,000). In other words, since universities of equal quality have well under 4,000 freshmen, they never really need to admit more than 10,000 applicants. In order for Michigan t improve its admit rate, it has to increase the size of its applicant pool from the current level of under 25,000 to at least 30,000 and it has to reduce its freshman class from 6,000 to 5,000 at the very most. I personally feel Michigan shouldn't have a class greater than 4,000. At any rate, even if Michigan were to reduce its Freshman class to 5,000 and increase the applicant pool to 30,000, you would see its admit rate drop to 30%.</p>
<p>There might be value in a smaller freshman class, but I think its pretty unlikely that UM will move to reduce its class sizes dramatically.</p>
<p>I think Michigan knows that a class of 5,200 is 5,300 is optimal and I think it will generally aim for such a class. Some years, it will maybe go for 5,500 and other years (like this year), it will probably aim for 5,000. But I agree that Michigan will not drop below 5,000...but not for reasons you would think.</p>
<p>How do you know they're aiming for 5000 this year? Will they overshoot again? If they really are aiming for 5000, shouldnt we expect an acceptance rate below 50% this year?</p>
<p>
[quote]
The acceptance rate is higher because UM's yield is lower than comparable schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's not necessarily true. For example, WashU's yield is around 30% (way below Michigan's 45%) but its admit rate at 22% is much lower.</p>
<p>Let's look at a few others:
UVa: yield=52%; admit rate=37%
Brown: yield=58%; admit rate=17%
Dartmouth: yield=49%; admit rate=17%
Michigan: yield=45%; admit rate=57%</p>
<p>I'd say there is no strong correlation.</p>
<p>One way for Michigan to become "more selective" interms of the size of the applicant pool is simple; use the commonapp. Another way is to do what schools such as Amrerican, Rochester, Tulane and others have done; offer a free application for online applicants.</p>
<p>based upon Alexandre's post, I think Michigan is fine and does not need to increase the applicant pool.</p>
<p>They don't publish separate rates (acceptance rates, yield rates, etc) for Resident and Nonresident populations.</p>
<p>However, it's worth noting that the two groups are pretty different. And the cost decisions they are making are different, too. That drives down Nonresident yield rates (especially given U-M's aid policies and not-huge-pool of merit aid for nonresidents) and thus pushes up acceptance rates somewhat.</p>
<p>Chibearsfan, I am estimating that Michigan will aim for a class of 5,000 this year because each of the last two classes exceeded the admission's committee's mark by at least 500. This year, Michigan will err on the side of caution and accept students will the expectation that the yield rate will be higher than usual. I do not foresee Michigan accepting more than 10,000 students and waiting to see how many students send in their deposit before dipping, if necessary, into the deferred list. Altogether, I expect Michigan will accept under 12,000 students out of an applicant pool of roughly 24,000. So yes, I think Michigan's admit rate this year will probably be under 50%, but that's just a guestimate.</p>
<p>Why is this important so long as the students on campus are good? Some much crappier schools get far more apps due to mass marketing, locaton, etc. but their students are far below UM quality.</p>
<p>I agree Barrons. Many people put too much emphasis on admit rates. It is really and truly meaningless. Chicago and Michigan have always admitted close to 50% of their applicants and nobody in academe or in the corporate world would leave either one of those two schools out of their short list of top universities. But, whether we like it or not, young people (under the age of 20) are very concerned with image and a school with an admit rate of 50% just isn't "impressive".</p>
<p>I think acceptance rate says a LITTLE bit about a schools prestige. Part of the allure of more selective universities is the fact that its hard to get in. Analogy: Ford makes good cars. Good solid cars. But a Porsche seems better partly because fewer people can own them. I think its the same idea with college. </p>
<p>Because acceptance rate is an indicator of prestige (whether we like it or not), I do think the university should make an effort to keep that number down by encouraging higher yield and more applications. A lower acceptance rate might make UM even more attractive to high-performing students who consider it right now to be a back-up or safety.</p>
<p>KB</p>
<p>Michigan has a strong applicant pool as well, particularily among the OOS students. This results in a high acceptance rate. The University of Chicago has something like a 45% acceptance rate, which is also extremely high for the same reason.</p>
<p>KB, admit rate has nothing to do with prestige. At least not where it matters. Ranking of graduate programs, peer assessment scores and corporate rankings are what determine prestige, which explains why Michigan is one of the 10-15 most prestige universities in the US...where it matters.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate says only a little about the school's prestige, but a low acceptance rate does make the school APPEAR more prestigious to the average potential applicant, and would probably raise applications among top students natinally as well as raise the yield among these applicants because it appears more prestigious to them because their view of a school's strength/prestige is probably pretty narrow because they're mostly on the outside of the whole college admissions process.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification chibears. That's what I mean't pretty much. I don't believe that an admit rate indicates prestige generally, but it does indicate prestige amongst high-strung high school juniors and seniors who want "the best".</p>