My son is going to apply EA to UM for Fall '16. It is his first choice school. I have a question about demonstrated interest. His stats are strong , but his ACT Math is 29, the absolute minimum foe CoE. He is however OOS so I think UM is a far reach for him. Is attending Tech Day going to help him at all? It a 6 hour drive for us and a difficult expense with his app fees and other associated fees all coming due soon.
I know it’s a great school, but I hate to feed the dream when it seems like such a complete reach.
Demonstrate interest is considered at UMich, however, it may be a better use of time to retake ACT for your son. The mid 50 Math section score of enrolled freshmen at CoE was 32-35 in 2013 and 31-35 in 2014. 29 is quite significantly below the 25th percentile of enrolled freshmen. Admission stat is even slightly higher. They consider the Math score to be most important. Even with 36 in all other 3 sections, a 34 composite with 29 in Math is not really competitive for UMich CoE particularly from OOS.
Thank you @billcsho . I appreciate your input. Your reply was what I was expecting. He gets straight A’s in math and yes he is high on the ACT in all other areas. I do not get why the math portion gets him every time. It will be interesting to see his AP Calc score at years end. While I hate to crush the dream, he’s already been accepted to Iowa State and UAH for engineering. I think attending Tech Day might make it even harder to cope if (when) he gets the denial
There’s another option though maybe not ideal. I had a lowish Math score with very high scores on other sections. I applied to LSA, was accepted for Fall '15 and will be applying to transfer after freshman year. A lot of students do it and UMich makes it fairly easy to do as long as grades are good in the pre reqs.
^ One may even apply to UM at Flint for engineering. It is definitely a lot easier to get in than even LSA and they guarantee transfer to UMich CoE if you meet the minimal GPA requirement. If you can’t meet that requirement there, you basically cannot survive at Mich anyway.
