On Campus at Michigan and Inside the Admissions Office
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Last week I spent a few hours in Ann Arbor and on campus at the University of Michigan! An impromptu visit on an unfortunately smoky day (Canadian wildfire smoke).
For those of you who haven’t been to this town or part of the country, Ann Arbor is bustling! Big House aside, you can feel the energy here, a place where sports, innovation and art all co-exist. It’s pretty much what you envision when you think of a world class university setting.
Not surprisingly, they received more than 115,000 applications last fall. What’s crazy is how much the number of applicants has grown in just the past 5 years (by 36%).
Candidly we’re seeing this kind of application inflation at nearly all the ‘popular’ schools, but that’s a topic for another day. Today is about Michigan and a few nuggets I wanted to share from my chat with Molly Fischer (pictured w me).
Molly is Michigan’s Admissions Counselor for most of Florida, including my home county of Broward. She’s great, by the way!
Anyhow, Molly will be making the College Fair rounds in Florida in October. If you’re considering Michigan, go say hi to her!! She has her eyes on every Florida application and gives most of them a thorough review herself.
It’s much better (as in easier to stand out in a pile of applicants) when the person who’s making their way through said pile can put a face to the application they’re pulling. (And, Michigan does track demonstrated interest though it’s not the most critical factor in the decision).
For kids in other states, Molly’s Admissions teammates do the same in and for their respective territories. Wherever you are in the country, go to your college fair/school info sessions and meet your rep!
There were other important takeaways from my visit as well, including these:
1) Though this year many schools are pulling away from requiring supplemental essays, Michigan is not. They have a pretty involved set of questions so I’d get started as soon as those prompts are updated (check your Common App on Aug 1). They also require one teacher req.
2) Michigan has a fully test optional policy admissions policy; applicants are no longer required to submit their ACT or SAT scores, but they can if they want to. The first rule of thumb is to check where your scores are against the scores of admitted students; if you’re above the 50th percentile, then it’s worth considering sharing your scores.
Molly was quick to point out that Michigan also evaluates your scores from within your current environment, so if your scores exceed those of your classmates, consider sending them.
If you want a really accurate understanding of where and when to submit your test scores, you should check out what I use with my private students (it goes beyond publicly available data and into 20 years of student outcomes from our practice). You can access it here.
3) Once again Michigan is offering a binding Early Decision admissions option. There’s no published data from Michigan, but the College Acceptance Predictor I use does offer additional insight into the advantages and disadvantages of applying ED v RD.
Back at home, it’s great to see our 12th grade students, including our bootcamp students, nearly finished with their applications. I love seeing their stories take shape. Our next class will address Funding – paying less than sticker for the schools they want to attend.
I can’t believe we’re back to school in just a few weeks. If you’re worried about whether you’re making the right decisions for your child’s educational goals, or not sure if you’re even asking the right questions, give me a call or send me an email and we can discuss.
