Is UMich off the table for me?

Applying to College
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UMich Ann Arbor has always been a dream for me since I was very young. I’m in-state, and go to a feeder school where around 100+ seniors are accepted into UMich each year. I am currently a sophomore, and in my freshman year I was a straight A student, 4.0 GPA.

Recently, I’ve experienced a health issue that has caused me to miss a very large amount of school days and fall behind on my work, leading to me currently having a 3.2 GPA this year, and a 3.5 overall. I plan on taking summer school to boost this year’s GPA, but there’s no way it will go higher than a 3.4 for the year.

I recently had a serious talk with my school counselor/college advisor about what I should do, and she basically told me that UMich is unachievable for me now, and I should be looking toward schools like MSU. I was absolutely crushed. I know I need to be realistic about my stats, but the reality really sank in for me in that moment.

After some careful calculating, if I receive a 4.0 GPA my junior year, my GPA should be around a 3.7 cumulatively, but I know this likely is not enough and is definitely low for an application to UMich.

I have yet to take the SAT/ACT, but I plan on taking both for sure. I have already begun studying in hopes of achieving a high score to maybe rectify how my GPA is viewed on my application.

Some of my other stats for reference:

  • School does not do weighted GPA or class rank
  • 8 APs taken by senior year
  • 3 IBs taken by senior year
  • Dual Enrollment student

Extracurriculars include:

  • Had a part time job since Freshman year, working 3 to 4 days a week consistently with a leadership position
  • Orchestra for over 10 years, with leadership positions within the last 3 years
  • Founded a club for concussion awareness, focusing on raising awareness and educating the community, several community events and fundraisers
  • Founded another club focused on neuroscience journal review focusing on teaching other students interested in neuroscience how to journal review
  • High leadership in 2 other clubs focusing on psychology + engineering
  • participant in both HOSA events and BrainBee

^ As a rising junior, I’ve been looking for internship and volunteering opportunities, and plan on shadowing over the summer as well

I need advice: with these stats, do you think I still have a chance applying to UMich, or should I move on? What schools should I be considering besides UMich?

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Are you planning to apply to medical school?

A couple of things…

  1. If this was health related, and the school knows it was health related…why wouldn’t your school counselor explain this in their counselor letter? If the only reason and year your grades were lower were the health concern year, that sounds like it should be clarified by your school counselor. Did you have a health plan for the days you were out of school?
  2. You have already been given the suggestion of Michigan State…that’s not a bad option.

Please clarify what your intended area of study will be, and your annual budget for college.

You might want to do a chance me/match me thread once you have mid junior year grades and your PSAT score.

At this point, do your personal best. There will be many colleges that will welcome you as a student when the time comes. U of Michigan is a great university, but there are many others where you likely can grow and flourish. And when the time comes, you can apply to Michigan…it’s a reach for most students…so you can apply and see. But having your other options all set will be VERY important, as it is for all college applicants.

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This. If for some reason they won’t, it can be explained in the “additional info” section of the common app.

And very definitely this.

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  1. My counselor had never mentioned anything about a counselor letter to me…I intend on bringing this up to her for sure. The counselor has been well aware of the health issue since the beginning of the school year, but did not provide a plan or any way I could make up my absences - I had to reach out to my teachers individually, which was not a problem, but their levels of accommodations varied, so some grades took harder hits than others. Whenever I was able, I completed my schoolwork, but due to the health issue, I significantly had fallen behind.

Apologies for not clarifying in the original post! My intended area of study is neuroscience, specifically cognitive neuroscience. I am still unsure if I want to go into research or clinical, and therefore unsure about medical school at this point. Thank you for the encouragement!

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No one here can tell you whether you will be accepted at Michigan. Your high school guidance counselor is in the best position to do that. One piece of publicly available information is that 93% of accepted students and a gpa above 3.75 last year, so there’s that. Another fact is that fewer than 16% of the applicants were accepted last year. Putting that another way, 84% of the applicants were turned away. Bottom line is that this is a very hard school at which to get admitted. They had almost 100,000 applicants last year. It should be considered a reach for anyone, which means that acceptance can not be considered a sure thing for anyone. Anyone applying there needs to have a list of alternative schools to apply to. Anyone. It is a very popular choice.

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Of course! I understand that it is a very difficult school to get into, that’s a given. I guess being surrounded by the 100+ seniors who were accepted from my school this year just alters my perception, but I have done my research about the school.

I do have alternative schools, I guess I was more asking should I be removing UMich from being my main option? Thank you for the information!

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Why remove it? Apply and see what happens. :thinking:

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I do not think that you should even think about this one way or another at the current time. Do as well as you can for this upcoming year, and see how it goes.

Also, keep in mind that there are a lot of very good universities. An appropriate school will be there when the time comes.

Recovering from your health issue is important. Worrying about what university you might or might not attend for your bachelor’s degree is not.

I am wondering whether or not stress might have anything to do with whatever health issue you have dealt with, or with your recovery. In many cases the US high school system and university admissions puts way too much stress on our students.

With this in mind, in terms of things such as AP classes and DE classes and ECs, more is not always better. Sometimes it is better to do fewer things, and do them very well. Each of us need to figure out what pace is right for us.

I noticed that you have founded a club for concussion awareness. This could be very valuable. A concussion might be one example of something that can just come out the blue. What impact it can have can vary enormously. Avoiding concussions and dealing with them may be one example of an area where more could be done, although I think that we are way better at this than we were back when I was in high school (which was a long time ago).

Neuroscience is an area where some form of graduate school is likely. You can get into very good graduate programs from any one of a huge range of universities. In some cases you can find out online where graduate students at any particularly university got their bachelor’s degree, and the answer tends to be “all over the place”. Just as one example, since you are interested in both U.Michigan and neuroscience, apparently they have a very good graduate program in neuroscience, and the PhD students there appear to have gotten their bachelor’s degrees at a huge range of schools (including a few students from Michigan State, and students from many other schools). Of course there are lots of other excellent universities with excellent graduate programs, and lots of other things you can do with a degree in neuroscience, and you have lots of time to figure this out.

Mostly for next year you just focus on doing what is right for you. Then a year from now you can reevaluate and think about what sort of universities might be appropriate.

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So my advice will be different but I agree 100% what was said. But……

You’re still in play. I know the school you most likely go to. It’s a huge feeder. Michigan admissions knows the rigor of your school. Michigan is also great at holistic reviews. Like “Real “Holistic reviews. After your counselor does a write up it will be evident that well, crap happened. But Michigan doesn’t like students taking lots of APs and not scoring high in them. So be aware of that. My son went to our #1 state school at the time and only had 2Aps in Junior year. His school said don’t worry. He did. He took 6 APs plus Multivariant Calc plus cello. In senior year. . He Aced out and was accepted Early. He wanted to make sure Michigan knew he was ready for college

Enjoy high school. Maybe lesson the Ecs and if you’re having that work load Ace out. Get lots of help. Stay on track. If you do well next year DM me in the winter time and I will give you some hints of things to do to get their attention, in a good way.

Good luck.