Why a student from California need to apply to U-M (university of Michigan)

Applying to College
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<p>hoedown: The school my daughter attend has a better record on overall Ivies admission than Harvard-Westlake. Since the school have been sending around 25% of senior class to Ivies hence there is hope. So why not look for good schools till there is hope. </p>

<p>I looked for the top public schools in the silicon valley which are among the top 20 public high schools in california. And there have not been any matriculation to U-M.</p>

<p>How else you will reach any conclusions if you don’t want to believe actual numbers? </p>

<p>I was looking for schools so someone mention U-M is better than Brown, so I started looking for answers to this statement. Is it really true? Then I looked around schools matriculation to see how many goto U-M. I hardly found any so how can I believe people on these board that U-M is better than Brown. When the evidence is on the contrary?</p>

<p>If a school is really that good then lot of students from top high schools will apply and would like to attend.</p>

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<p>epiphany:
"Yes, there are some Valedictorians whose position was attained by taking less rigorous courses to achieve a high GPA. However, mostly that is not true. That is because most high-achieving students also want to take a rigorous curriculum and do better even in those classes than less able students do in easy classes. I know that there are still some schools that select Vals by unweighted GPA, which is pretty meaningless.
"</p>

<p>I talked of the school csqaure attend and know many students who have taken less rigros courses to achieve a 4.0 GPA. I was sad in csquare case as she didn’t seem like those children as her SAT scores have been very good. So I just wanted to see what might have gone wrong for her in case of U. Penn admissions.</p>

<p>Any insight to what might have been the cause will only provide other students a chance to cover that hole. What is wrong in that?</p>

<p>What is wrong in trying to play the admission game to win? If you can find ways to strengthen your chances at the time of admissions by learning from others situation then what is wrong in that?</p>

<p>Why people start to scream that your Daughter will not get into these school?</p>

<p>How do they know? Will she get in or not noone knows but why resort these personal things? </p>

<p>I’m not attacking you personally just putting forward my thoughts your thoughts might be different from mine but that doesn’t make me wrong or guilty.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>But…you’re only looking at California highschools, so you only know what students from one particular area are doing. And yes, in a HUGE state with lots of really good in-state schools, probably not that many people would look at OOS publics. But that doesn’t mean top students from other areas don’t.</p>

<p>I lived in Baltimore my entire life (before college). During that entire time I met one person who ended up going to UCLA, one to Berkley and one to Stanford. Meanwhile, 7 people in my grade at my school alone went to NYU (and at least a couple of them were very much TOP students). Does that mean UCLA, Berkley and Stanford are bad schools/lesser schools than NYU? Of course not. What it means is that many east coast kids want to stay on the east cost.</p>

<p>PS. When it comes to top schools, it is often really hard to tell what went “wrong” for certian applicants. Often nothing went WRONG, it’s just that they didn’t supply what the school needed. So, like, a 4.0 Val w/all the hardest classes whose main passion is opera singing might be passed over for ANOTHER 4.0 Val w/all the hardest classes whose main passion is opera singing and who has performed in more professional thearter. Etc. Etc. The point is, people who have amazing acedemic records, amazing SATs and great ECs still get passes over…there is nothing you cna do to garentee admissions. Maybe you’re daughter will win the crap shoot, and maybe she won’t: just make sure that if she doesn’t, she has other options she will be happy with.</p>

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<p>Weskid:
"But…you’re only looking at California highschools, so you only know what students from one particular area are doing. And yes, in a HUGE state with lots of really good in-state schools, probably not that many people would look at OOS publics. But that doesn’t mean top students from other areas don’t.
"</p>

<p>Then you have NOT paid any attention to the heading of this thread </p>

<p>" Why a student from California need to apply to U-M (university of Michigan)"</p>

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<p>I know the heading, but we’ve seem to have gotten off topic (discussion of csquare’s qualifications has nothing to do w/the topic either). I mean, it seems like everyone agrees that there are reasons that certain students from Cali would apply to UMich, but most probably won’t for a number of reasons. My point is just that you can’t extrapolate from that that UMich is a bad/lesser school.</p>

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<p>I never said that U-M is any less of a school or is not a selective school.
I only tried to make these two points:</p>

<ol>
<li>what I tried to convey that if U-M is as good a school as UC-B then it will be as difficult to get in which in turns means it is difficult to get into U-M for a Californian student than to get into UC-B.
i.e<br>
U-M is as selective as UC-B
OOS at public University is tougher than In State
For a Californian U-M is OOS public University
So admission to U-M will be more difficult for Californian student than admission to UC-B</li>
</ol>

<p>If that is true then what can be the reason for a california student to apply or attend U-M over UC-B.</p>

<ol>
<li>And if it is more difficult to get into U-M for a californian than UC-B then that Californian can spend that energy/time to concentrate on Universities where csquare was admitted to as if they have a shot at U-M then they do have a shot at Northwestern/U Chicago/Duke etc.
i.e
Admission to U-M is tougher than UC-B for Californian from 1.
Admission to Duke/Northwestern/… private unive are tougher than UC-B for Californian (Known)
Cost of attending private University is same as OOS cost at public University
Then why not spend time/energy at those private college admissions.</li>
</ol>

<p>So then why a californian student will like to consider U-M.</p>

<p>Now what was wrong with the above two reasoning. I did search top californian public high schools and couldn’t find students matriculating to U-M</p>

<p>I didn’t bother looking at all public high schools because if U-M is that selective then students from other high school will have even less chance to make it there.</p>

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<p>POIH,
I’m not one to usually defend U Michigan as I think it is greatly overrated on CC, but I think your comments and comparisons are unfair. </p>

<p>On CC there are a few U Michigan students and grads who think that U Michigan hung the sun and the moon and promote it to the level of the Ivies (and perhaps one of their comparisons to Brown is what prompted you to question the school). Others, including me, who have not drunk the Kool Aid, have pointed out that U Michigan is an excellent state university, but for many reasons is not at the level of virtually all of the schools that you list (HYPSM, Caltech, Penn, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Duke, JHU, N’western, U Chicago, WashU). For non-Michigan residents, I would expect U Michigan to lose the cross admit battle to all of these schools and probably in pretty decisive numbers. </p>

<p>Having said that,U Michigan would not necessarily be a bad choice for any student. Academically, it is a well regarded school (particularly in the Midwest) and their top graduates will have good work and graduate school opportunities. Perhaps not to the level of the schools listed above, but still pretty darn good. But IMO the biggest selling point for U Michigan vs your other schools is that it would offer a different experience (socially, athletically, school spirit, size) than what you would find at all of the others (closest would be Cornell, then Duke and N’western although they aren’t very similar to U Michigan). U Michigan would probably offer a better undergraduate experience than many of the schools previously listed, even if it is not quite to their level in terms of student body quality. </p>

<p>Most important to my comment is that I think you are unfairly singling out U Michigan. Brown or some other highly ranked private school might be a more academically recognized school, but U Michigan and the other top publics have a lot to recommend them as well. The same comparison could be made for many of the top publics (UC Berkeley, U Virginia, U North Carolina, U Texas, U Wisconsin, U Florida, Penn State, U Washington). Applicants to places like HYPSM and other top privates will often use these schools for backup applications, but that does not automatically make them inferior places offering inferior experiences. Many, many students from these and less heralded public schools go on to achieve exceptional things in business and in life. These public schools are all terrific schools and all offer a well-rounded undergraduate experience that combines academic excellence with so much more. Many people value that highly and the issues of fit drive their college selection process. If your child ends up at U Michigan or one of the other publics that you mention, I confidently predict that she will get a good education and she will have a great undergraduate experience.</p>

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<p>“What is wrong in trying to play the admission game to win?”</p>

<p>Nothing. But the best way to “win” is to have a varied college list, with a balance of colleges in levels of selectivity with maximum attention to specific fit for the student’s academic plan and especially with maximum enthusiasm generated by the student, for each of those colleges. (Most people would not consider a list of up to 22 reaches as such a balanced list.)</p>

<p>I think we all play to win, do we not? The problem is – unlike with some other countries, where admissions is “guaranteed” if the student meets a specific set of requirements – most of the private colleges here do not operate their admissions departments that way. That is, winning cannot be very well predicted, that’s all. Because of the fact that there are too many numerically qualified students for all the elites, admissions is always comparative. My “qualified” daughter may not be admitted over someone else’s equally qualified daughter or son, because there’s no “top limit” to those qualifications. That student may have done even more things outside of the high school curriculum than my daughter has, and that may make the difference.</p>

<p>QUOTE:
“If you can find ways to strengthen your chances at the time of admissions by learning from others situation then what is wrong in that?”</p>

<p>Nothing. But the warning is that no student can really duplicate someone else’s program for acceptance. Again, it’s a comparative field of competition for each admission round, limited only to that admission round. If a runner wins a race one year, a similar or equal runner may not win the same scheduled race next year, because the entire field of competition will be new, and there is no way to predict the skills of the competing new runners. The difficulty predicting that increases when the <em>number</em> of runners is even greater one year than it was the previous year. (As 2008 will be compared to 2007.)</p>

<p>QUOTE:
"Why people start to scream that your Daughter will not get into these school?</p>

<p>How do they know? Will she get in or not noone knows but why resort these personal things?"</p>

<p>Well, I’m not screaming, nor have I said “will not.” And I <em>don’t</em> know. Maybe she’ll get into 26 colleges.<br>
The point is, it’s best not to plan on definite outcomes for winning the race. It’s better to apply to a range, including enough reaches which will be ideal for her needs, as well as matches & safeties which will ensure that she will not panic if none of the reaches say yes. Plenty of students on college confidential have been extremely well qualified academically, and have received zero reach acceptances; others have received one reach acceptance; and still others got into several or all of their reaches. But the only ones with negative outcomes are those who had no Plan B’s in place on April 1, and had to deal with fear and anxiety along with scrambling for a place to go.</p>

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<p>PoIvy:</p>

<p>For the third (and last) time, your initial assumption #1 in Post 166 is incorrect: UMich is not more difficult, it is less difficult for an Calif kid to receive acceptance than to recive acceptance at Cal.</p>

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<p>hawkette: I got the point and I think I might have made a mistake by singling out U-M that might have hurt the sentiments of students at U-M but I was just trying to point that it might not be in favor of students from California to spend time and energy looking for and applying to good public Universities out of state.</p>

<p>But point well taken hawkette.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>But you did say:</p>

<p>

Which seemed to me to be implying that UMich is NOT “that good.” However, if this is not what you meant, than I am sorry for the confusion.</p>

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<p>I can think of a few reasons:

  1. Their parents are from Michigan and kids have some link to the Michigan area. I know a few students in our school district, which is rate #3 by Harvard, that attend UM.
  2. To get away from all these California kids and their parents.
  3. UM gives great merit aid compare to the UCs</p>

<p>But I can also see from a parent’s point of view in terms of finance and practicality why it does not make sense to apply to other state top public schools vs CA top public schools, after all they are still public schools.</p>

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<p>A few logical reasons might be:</p>

<p>(1) If U-M offers a major, dept, program which is better or more interesting or more accessible than the counterpart at U.C.</p>

<p>(2) If such a dept. or major is a more competitive admission at U.C. than at U-M, and U-M is being used additionally as an alternative.</p>

<p>(3) To have an “away” college experience, experiencing the seasons, etc., if the student has never lived out of CA.</p>

<p>(4) Merit aid, as someone just said. (Possibly OOS tuition with merit aid might be roughly equivalent to in-state U.C. tuition? If so.)</p>

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<p>Someone did mention Harvard-Westlake School in LA and I checked their 2006 Matriculation and it is awesome and it did send 7 to U-M.</p>

<p>And it seems U-M is a big thing at that school as it has sent 100 to U-M in the last 15 years.</p>

<p>But if you look at their 2006 Matriculation and their 15 years history of matriculation you will be able to analyze the obvious:</p>

<ol>
<li>Very few student from such a reputed high school matriculate to MIT/CIT.</li>
<li>In the last 15 years they couldn’t send even 41 students to MIT or CIT as it is not up there but they have UC Santa cruz.</li>
</ol>

<p>That was the reason We actually passed on this high school. Even though this has great matriculation to Ivies the lack of matriculation to MIT/CIT stress the following:</p>

<p>Most of the Ivies admission is tied to either legacy/celebrity status and reason being MIT/CIT are the only in the top schools area to ignore legacy status to that extent.</p>

<p>Just an observation so don’t bash me up on this. </p>

<p>Does it make sense? Do you think lack of matriculation to MIT/CIT but a high matriculation to Ivies is the indication of high legacy/celebritiy admissions.</p>

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<p>No. Judging from the results from my kid’s class, legacy is not a very strong factor for most of the Ivies unless the parent is a huge donor; there are very few celebrities at any particular private (or public) high school. Harvard-Westlake is unusual is sending so many students to the top schools; most California private schools do no better than public schools at sending kids to Harvard because California does not have the long-standing ties that schools like Andover and Milton Academy have.<br>
The topic of this thread is, not to put too fine a point on it, a little silly – obviously a Californian who has many UC’s to choose from is unlikely the end to go to Michigan unless he/she receives a big scholarship that can equate to UC tuition or has special ties to Michigan or wants to major in something not offered at a UC but offered at U Mich, such as a first-rate music performance program.<br>
It seems that for your daughter, who aims at Harvard/Princeton/Yale and will apply to two dozen schools, U of Michigan would be superfluous.</p>

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<p>CIT? what school is that</p>

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<p>and what do you mean by COULDN’T…I don’t understand that comment, jsut because students didn’t go there, doesnt mean they couldn,t maybe kids could have gone there, but chose not to, that is one part of the equation you seem to miss over and over again, CHOICE</p>

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<p>CIT = Cal Inst of Tech = Cal Tech for short</p>

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<p>ParentOfIvyHope,
Very few people like to go to tech schools that may explain why few people got into MIT/CIT. I know my D look at MIT brochure and said the people seem so smart and that was it.</p>

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<p>California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.</p>