S was accepted today. Received so called “good” deferral letter (the one that does not specifically ask the student to send senior year grades). He did send an email and a letter to express interest after he got deferred. OOS. A couple of observations…his stats were on point for what would previously been an acceptance at his school…Thus, he likely hit the pile of yes, based on grades and test scores. The deferrals this year at his school were many, and students with much lesser stats got in (may have been legacy). My guess is that Michigan wants to not over admit (per their announcement earlier this year at a professional meeting), and rather than look at past years’ data, glean from that how many admits they need to reduce the number by in order to hit that target number, looking at various data points such as GPA, test scores, OOS vs In-state, they asked students (and guidance counselors…they received a letter prior to the mass deferral email, creating, a “nightmare” in the words of my sons GC) to step up and basically say if admitted I will come…totally not fair. Surely an institution of their stature should be able to create a better model to project enrollment based on admittance, for Pete’s sake they have a top notch engineering and computer science program…In summary, I think their behavior through this entire process has been less than chivalrous and has a left a very bad taste in a lot of students (and parents) mouths. To all the students who have been hanging out on this thread, I truly hope all of you get in…and get in sooner rather than later. Many of you have shown a lot of class, integrity, and just plain niceness–with lots of support for each other that speaks well of you as human beings. UM would be lucky to have any of you.