Weirdly enough, different schools have different environments. At my school, that is what happened. I’m sure people got rejected from U of M, but I don’t know of any- because they just didn’t apply IME.
Carry on.
The in-state admission rate is so high precisely because it is mainly the best qualified in-state students who apply. The kind of self-selection romani describes has been going on in Michigan for decades, reinforced by HS GCs. It may not be universally true at all high schools in the state, but it is very widespread. Granted, my experience was many decades ago, but only I was one of only 2 students from my graduating class from my smallish UP high school (there were about 120 in my class, if I recall) who applied to Michigan. I was the valedictorian, the other was the salutatorian, and we were both admitted. Our GC encouraged both of us to apply; to my knowledge he didn’t encourage anyone else, though he steered plenty of kids the next rank down academically to apply to Michigan State and Michigan Tech, and the next rank down after that he steered toward Northern Michigan or a local (private) junior college. I don’t get back to my old hometown often, but I was back a few years ago to be the graduation speaker. One member of the (now much smaller) graduating class was headed to the University of Michigan. He was the valedictorian. To my knowledge, no one else even applied.
You certainly can’t assume that with a 50% in-state admission rate, a B+ in-state student has a 50-50 chance of admission. That student’s chances of admission may be close to zero. because they’ll be competing against most of the best students in the state. There aren’t a lot of high-end private college options in Michigan, very few Michiganders leave the state for college, and the University of Michigan is far and away the best in-state public option. So most of the state’s best students apply there, and a healthy fraction of them are accepted. That doesn’t mean it’s rational for weaker students to apply.
@bclintonk Obvious not everyone has a 50% chance. Nowhere I assume that. I am responding to the one who said would apply only if one certainly would get it. If one is certain to get in, it would be 100% admission chance. I am just saying those almost certainly would not get in should not apply. A B+ student that you referred to with uwGPA 3.3 would be under that category as admission average GPA is 3.85. Same for students with ACT below 26. That is the self-selection process. Those in the grey area (i.e. slightly below 25th percentile) from in state should definitely try even they are not certain to get in.
At my D’s school, over half of the 400+ graduating class apply to UMich every year and around 100-150 get admitted each year.
Your daughter go to Pioneer too? That’s where I went, guess it makes sense the experience would be the same for me as her.
Same school or not, these are hardly typical figures for Michigan high schools. The University of Michigan admits applicants from Ann Arbor-area schools at extremely high rates. In part it’s because they tend to be among the better schools in the state. In part, it may be because many applicants from these schools enjoy a legacy advantage; the density of Michigan alums is probably higher in and around Ann Arbor than anywhere else in the state, and so is the density of alumni offspring, and Michigan does give a definite admissions bump to legacies. In part in may be an admissions preference for the children of university faculty and staff; this doesn’t show up in, e.g., the Common Data Set, but it’s a practice widely followed by most public and private universities. In any event, having half the class apply, and half of those who apply be admitted, is pretty much off the charts. I’d be surprised if as many as 6 or 8 schools in the state can claim numbers like that.
Disregarding what fraction of students apply, having 50% applied students accepted is not off the chart as that is the state average. Students at some school would have less than 50% admission rate and others have higher. Obviously, feeder school has higher (near 75%). But disregarding which school is, I see no reason those in the grey area to give up their chance although it may be lower than the 50% chance of average applicant. Top 20 feeder schools only fill up 16% of the total seats. It makes sense for in state student to apply to an in state low reach state flagship school for financial reason and quality of the school. Again, I disagree with those saying only “almost certainly to get in” (i.e. safety, low match, match) to apply from in state. You may think otherwise.
It also depends on which school you apply to and UM. Each school has different criteria, e.g. CoE has a lower admit rate than LSA, some schools require performance or porfolios. Washtenaw and Oakland counties tend to have the most educated parents (Ann Arbor has one of the highest % of adults w degrees in the US) who’s offspring tend to attend the state flagship. In addition, many kids go where their friends go - Western MI kids attend WMU, CMI, Ferris GVSU, or MSU.
The in-state admission rate is also high because there just are not that many qualified (and they self-select) in-state applicants due to Michigan’s lack of population growth and the Regents’ commitment to keep UM 50% in-state.
Finally the in-state yield is higher because UM is a huge bargain compared to OOS and private schools, especially if you don’t get FA. For example, do you attend the #6 engineering school (UM @ $25K , CMU @$60K, GT @40K OOS) vs #4 Caltech @64K or #3 Berkeley @44K. That’s a $60-150K degree cost difference for a not too dissimilar experience.
Michigan is still affordable for most middle-class parents, especially those that starting saving early or bought METs. I can’t say that for many other highly rated schools.
It may still be a bargain with FA as UMich meets the need of in state students and may turn out to be cheaper than some privates that also meet the need of students. UMich also pledged to reduce student debt by offering more grants.
Umich has a $10 billion endowment, so I don’t know why they don’t offer 100% demonstrated meet for OOS.
Endowment money is frequently earmarked for a specific spend. The size of the endowment is much less relevant than the designation specified by the donor. For that reason Michigan, in the last two capital campaigns, has tried to ensure that earmarks are pointed toward aid. While there is a degree of fungibility, money spent out of endowment for a particular bit of research may free up other institutional dollars, the fact remains that there are endowment constraints sufficient to make a directed spend difficult without specific underlying donor intent.
Now let’s look at order of magnitude using approximate numbers. The out of state cohort (international students might be mixed into my number) is roughly 40%28,000 students, or roughly (very) 11,000 students. Giving each such student a $20,000 scholarship would require $220,000,000 million in income. At a 5% spend rate (aggressive in light of the current spend rate), that would require $220MM20, or roughly, very, $4,500,000,000 dollars in endowment corpus. At present, the endowment corpus for aid is less than half that amount and is spread over more like 50,000 students rather than 10,000 to 12,000 students. Those are very crude figures but offer a flavor as to the sort of money you are talking about. Endowment at the $20,000 level for all 50,000 students would run roughly $20,000,000,000…or twice the current endowment corpus, and would crowd out all earmarked spending.
Because it’s only a $10 billion endowment. Seriously. On a per-student basis that works out to $223,000 per student, which is good, but nowhere near Princeton’s $2.6 million per student, or Yale’s $2.0 million per student, or Harvard’s $1.7 million per student, or Stanford’s $1.4 million per student. Very few colleges and universities meet 100% of need for 100% of their students with demonstrated need; and all or almost all that do have higher endowments-per-student than Michigan. That’s why the university is now in the midst of a $4 billion capital campaign to try to raise additional endowment to support need-based FA for all students, OOS as well as in-state.
A standard rate of payout from endowment is 5% per year. A straight 5% of $223,000 per student would be $11,150 per student per year. Of course, some students are full-pays and don’t need any need-based aid, though once the university starts meeting 100% of need for everyone, the composition of the OOS students will likely shift a bit, and more OOS students with need will end up in the mix. That will mean not only a higher FA payout, but less tuition revenue. And meeting full need for an OOS student is more expensive than meeting full need for an in-state student of a comparable income level, simply because OOS tuition is higher. But also keep in mind two other factors. First, Michigan takes out 5% of the rolling average of the past 5 years of endowment. That way its endowment payout is always lagging somewhat behind endowment growth. But it also meant that when the markets went sour in 2008-09, Michigan didn’t suffer the same kind of sudden loss of endowment payout that shook many other institutions. So the actual payout is less than $11,150 per student. And second, endowment supports more than just FA; some goes to support other strategic initiatives around the university.
At present only two public universities, UVA and UNC Chapel Hill, meet 100% of need for OOS students. Michigan will shortly become the third; that’s the plan if the capital campaign is fully successful. But keep in mind that OOS enrollment at UNC is capped at around 18 or 20% of the student body, and at UVA at 35%. Michigan is already around 40% OOS and likely will edge closer to 50% in coming years. So this is a huge financial commitment the university is taking on. It’s a noble and ambitious goal. I hope they succeed.