15% overall, crazy. I’d hazard something like 20% in state, 10% out of state?
My son applied regular decision to LSA for Economics in late January. Already accepted at UIUC (Econ) and IU Kelley but became more interested in Michigan after the early action deadline. UM is now his #1 choice. Cost is no issue.
Out of state (IL). 4.35 GPA weighted, 3.8-something unweighted (all A’s after freshman year in tough classes, three B’s as a freshman). No class rank. 8 AP courses (Calc AB and Econ related to his major). Varsity athlete at highly ranked large suburban Chicago school, decent extracurriculars, lots of volunteer and progressive work experience.
He chose not to submit a 1440 SAT and applied test optional (because it wasn’t a 1600, I guess). For these seniors it seems like perfection is the standard…..
I’m reading through these threads and seeing recommendations to contact admissions officers and have high school college counselors reach out on a student’s behalf as well. We would be happy to do that if it would help his chances.
Any advice for us at this stage?
Those estimates aren’t exactly right. For the class of 2028, there were 98,300 total applicants, and 15,400 admitted (that includes EA, RD and those taken off the waitlist), so the acceptance rate was indeed around 15%. But It’s significantly easier for in-state than out-of-state. They haven’t released the in-state/out-of-state date for the class of 2028 yet (and won’t until late this year), but they did disclose the data for the class of 2027 in their annual almanac, published in November. They have out-of-state admission at 14% and in-state at 39%. Now, those numbers are sure to come down for 2028, but not by a huge amount, I don’t think. In any case, here’s the graphic included in the Almanac with the latest figures:
Thanks for the data as always! In that case, I do think with the overall acceptance rate dropping from 18% to 15%, we may wind up around 12% OOS, and 30-35% In. It’ll be interesting to see.
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One tiny perspective I’d like to add is that while it may appear that the acceptance rates are going down, it’s not necessary that colleges are becoming more selective or harder to get into in real sense.
What colleges indeed are getting better is in their recruitment outreach efforts and marketing their “holistic” approach to admissions, thus encouraging many more applicants to apply.
There’s a race among top colleges to boast about their highly selective nature, and they do that by first encouraging many not-so-competitive students to apply, and then waitlist/reject them. UMich waitlisting twice more applicants than they accept is perhaps part of the same strategy—make applicants feel they have a chance, but truly they don’t.
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If they would agree to then why not?
Question is are you a feeder school to Michigan?
How many get accepted and how many commit?
What is his highest math he took in high school? Is he getting mostly As as a senior?
Congrats on the 2 acceptances. I live in Chicago. I know those and this school well.
Illinois is the 3rd largest state size at Michigan so there is always that but it’s a hard OOS get especially this year with so many applications.
Good luck.
As far as wait lists are concerned, if last year around 900 students got accepted or whatever the number was that is great for them. There are a few people that come on here and state that happened. It’s a long road to go but if it works out for their family fantastic.
My son was waitlisted and didn’t want to be but we, the parents, wanted him to. He was already committed and excited to be here. It was a stupid request on our part. The old “let’s just see” attitude. He still wouldn’t of gone but let’s just cause more emotional trauma and angst on our child. 
Yikes. I used to be that parent. 
But… At this point I would be looking at other colleges very closely and get excited about their programs and activities. Families tend to hold onto what could be instead what cards they hold in their hands at this very moment. It will cause less stress later on if they’re getting excited about a school now.
What is the worst is that families will hold on. Their kid gets accepted. They can’t afford the school anyway. More stress and angst. This happens every year! Don’t do this. My daughter couldn’t go to her #1 since her #2 was giving her lots of merit. Technically she could of gone to her #1 but she knew her brother was coming up and she knew our funds and she would have loans to pay out, or go to #2 and school would all be paid out. If your wondering and it’s at long story. She ended up going to school #3 on at large Presidential merit after transferring and we had so much 529 money left over it’s almost paying for her Master’s program she’s in now. Things work out. #1 in her case actually wasn’t the best option for her. She knows that now looking back. Keep this in mind.
My point is, don’t wait close to May 1st like so many do to narrow down your choices. Start that now. Even if you’re waiting on a few schools. You will thank me later.
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This is a situation where two things are definitely true at the same time: schools are more difficult to get into because the outreach efforts you cite do reach students who may not have otherwise applied who are well qualified and desired by schools (think FGLI especially), and, more and more applicants who may not be especially qualified are applying because “why not” and “they sent me a brochure so they must love me!” and “fee waiver” and “not a lot of extra work in the common app” sort of rationales.
It may be worth noting that acceptance rates do not factor into USNWR rankings (even if some people mistake them for a proxy for prestige).
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Cannot agree more.
Not a fan of rankings. Colleges with “real” prestige don’t care for them and don’t need to boast them.
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This is invaluable advice. Thank you for sharing.
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Agreed, thanks for this valuable insight.
We’re already down to our top-3. Visiting all of them this week and will likely have our top pick sorted by next week.
Then it will be down to comparing that top-pick with our state flagship when decisions are out mid-March.
We figured it would be too stressful if we keep backloading the decision, so have been withdrawing applications on a rolling basis… Marie Kondo of college admissions .. lol.
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That’s awesome and congratulations in advance.
My son had a huge list of 5 school’s for engineering in the top 9/10. We forced him to apply to about 10. There were some ringers that we knew he would get accepted to quickly and that he visited. That was to boost the “ok, I am going to college”. We knew there were going to be some brutal decisions coming up. Always good to have some safeties in your pocket to soften the blow. The end result was his original 5.. 
… There was one that stung a bit and the rest were tossed long before for various reasons.
He narrowed it down to UIUC, Purdue and Michigan for engineering. That’s the Trifecta … Then it was decision time. I really can’t believe it took him so long but he did his due dilegence.
My wife went to Michigan. He’s been on campus tons since we have family in Michigan and went often.
My wife started wearing her old Michigan gear “daily” .
I would walk by to talk to him and on my phone was the Michigan marching band 
…
Finally, I said. Which game do you want to go to, Michigan vs OSU or Illinois vs Northwestern?
He committed that day 
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We went for UMich Campus Day last Friday. I highly recommend the experience for those accepted students still considering UMich. Morning focused on Financial Aid, Housing, walking campus tour and then lunch at a dining hall. Afternoon included detailed information session from the admitted school and then a sample lecture. It was a very well organized program and well worth a visit. Campus day starts at 7:30 AM so I recommend arriving the night before. The Hampton Inn Ann Arbor South was affordable and decent. It is about 2 miles drive to campus.
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Glad to hear it! We went last year in March and agree. It was definitely worthwhile, and moved UMich to the top of both of my kids lists.
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Hi there. I am a lurking parent of a high school junior who became extremely interested in UMich after a visit. We are OSS (in other words, UMich is a big reach). My question: I have seen several references to “feeder schools” like this one:
What does that mean exactly? I understand there are certain (probably larger, competitive) high schools that may have a slightly higher enrollment in UMich based on their size and the stats of their grads… But is there something more to it? Are there certain high schools that UMich admissions “likes” (for lack of a better word), so that graduating from one of those schools is a plus??
You’d have to dig into your school’s Naviance/SCOIR/etc data to the extent you have access to it, and/or speak to the college counselors. If your school punches above its weight wrt UMich, e.g. typically gets 50% of applicants admitted, half of which who then attend, then I’d say that qualifies as good news in this context.
Conversely, you may find that 1 or 2 kids have gone in the last 5 years. If 100 applied, maybe not so good news.
Here you go. This should give you a clue. On the map of high school click on them to see how many applied, got accepted and matriculated to Michigan.
We looked at the 301 high schools with the most applicants to U-M. Here's what we found.
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I reread this article from a few year’s ago and it’s pretty spot on knowing the schools in Chicago /Illinois and Michigan…
Apart from academics these so called “feeders” are in high income neighborhoods. Deeper in the article it is mentioned :
The average median household income for out-of-state public schools on this list is just over $128,000 — almost double the national household median income.) of $69,000.
Yes but not all. Keep in mind that Michigan’s like avg family income is close to $160,000.
They are targeting top tier schools and magnets like test in schools.