“So yes, U of M is having difficulty attracting many highly qualified students”
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applications have gone up every year for the last 10 years and show no sign of abating in this cycle;
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student credentials go up in every entering class while yield has been rock steady;
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from memory, the interquartile ACT is 30-33 (versus 30-34, on average, for the Ivy league);
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at this juncture, 67% of the students (slightly more than 2/3 of all entering students) enter with a 30 or greater on the ACT, which is above the Ivy 25th percentile…doubtless there are a few below that figure that still have an ACT score that would, on a stand alone basis, put them into the Ivy League range as to their board score.
Given the foregoing, what are you using as support for your statement? UM has a large absolute endowment but the relative endowment is around $225,000/student. That is not bad, but probably only around 80th. Common sense would tell you that UM would award aid if it had the dollars to do so. As the endowment climbs, aid climbs. In the 2nd prior year, aid was $160MM/year, and last year $180MM/year. To suggest that low aid has something to do with institutional indifference or animus is kind of silly.