“Jump in front of” only if you’re measuring by the US News rankings. In most other rankings, Michigan comes out ahead of schools like Duke and Chicago. Michigan gets nearly 60,000 undergraduate applications a year, roughly 50,000 of them from out-of-state students–far more than schools like Duke and Chicago. And it’s had strong national name recognition and a reputation for excellence for a very long time, more so than schools like Duke and Chicago. It’s only people who adhere to the US News rankings who think it’s as far down in the pack as US News places it, and they’re a smallish minority of students and parents.