Ann Arbor, MI
Weekly Summer Edition
MichiganDaily.com
INDEX
Vol. CXXI, No. 136 | © 2013 The Michigan Daily
michigandaily.com
NEWS ....................................
OPINION ...............................
ARTS ......................................
CLASSIFIEDS.........................
CROSSWORD........................
SPORTS..................................
NEWS
#MISafeCampus
Sue Sndyer hosted summit
discussing campus sexual
assault prevention
>> SEE PAGE 9
NEWS
Talent Showcase
The Library Talent Circus
featured performances
from library staff
>> SEE PAGE 3
OPINION
Privatization
New legislation
incentivizes mass
incarceration
>> SEE PAGE 4
ARTS
Music Festivals
Columnist explains how to
start your own
>> SEE PAGE 6
SPORTS
Grading Softball
The Daily hands out
its final grades for the
Michigan softball team
>> SEE PAGE 12
inside
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4
6
8
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10
What happens next: ‘U’
admissions process explained
‘U’ donor
Bertram
Askwith
dies at 104
University
admissions officers
discuss application
review process
By SHOHAM GEVA
Daily News Editor
Through the Family Education
Rights and Privacy Act, students
can view their applications to
schools where they were accepted
and attend, as publicized by Stan-
ford University newsletter The
Fountain Hopper in January.
Earlier this year, with the
hopes of gaining insight into the
admissions process, the Daily
worked with nine students who
viewed their applications to the
University, along with evaluative
comments made by the Office of
Undergraduate Admissions.
The nine students represented
a variety of genders, class stand-
ings, races, ethnicities, sexual
orientations,
socioeconomic
statuses,
in-
and
out-of-state
residencies,
nationalities
and
geographic areas. The Univer-
sity did not allow the students to
make copies or photographs of the
applications, but did permit them
to take handwritten notes, which
they provided to the Daily for the
purpose of this article.
This article was written with
the purpose of providing more
first-person
information
about
a typically closed process often
surrounded by assumption and
myth, with the understanding
that among an application pool
of tens of thousands, testimonials
from individual applications will
not necessarily be definitive of the
overall process.
The process
Cumulatively, over the three
years covered in student appli-
cations reviewed by the Daily
— 2012, 2013 and 2014 — nearly
140,000
prospective
students
applied to the University.
What the admissions office’s
final decisions stemmed from,
according to the applications we
reviewed, were largely an average
of two- or three-page-long evalu-
ations and a rating between 1 and
15 — 1 being the highest rating an
application can receive, 15 being
the lowest.
Among the nine students’ appli-
cations, there were several dif-
ferent paths taken through the
admissions office before being
admitted to the University.
Some were only evaluated by
an admissions staff member and
a senior admissions staff member,
for a total of two evaluations. Oth-
ers, however, had an additional
evaluation from an admissions
territory counselor.
In an interview with the Daily,
Erica Sanders, interim director
of the Office of Admissions, and
Melissa Purdy, assistant direc-
tor of the Office of Admissions,
said applications receive differ-
ing numbers of evaluations based
on the first evaluator — one of 82
part-time staff members who are
assigned files at random.
According to the admissions
See APPLICATION, Page 3
OBITUARY
Thursday, June 11, 2015
ADMISSIONS
Donated funds
for renovations
in Shapiro
Undergraduate
Library
By COLLEEN HARRISON
Summer Daily News Editor
University donor and alum
Bertram Askwith passed away
at the age of 104 Monday night,
according to a University press
release.
During his years as an under-
graduate, Askwith served as an
editor for The Michigan Daily.
He majored in economics with a
minor in journalism, and gradu-
ated from the University in 1931.
Askwith began his business,
Campus Coach Lines — a com-
pany that transported students
who were New York natives
home for holidays and school
breaks — as an undergraduate
student. He started the business
after a railroad strike in 1928 left
many students struggling to find
ways home from campus.
From 2000 to 2008, Askwith
served as the vice chair of the
Michigan Difference campaign.
He also created the Askwith
Fund for Innovation in Asthma
and Allergy Management in the
Center for Managing Chronic
Disease within the School of
Public Health, which focuses
on creating new techniques to
aid those affected by asthma
or allergies. Askwith, himself,
donated to the fund.
Askwith
established
the
Benny Friedman Fellowship in
Sports for Knight-Wallace Fel-
lows and the Mary Sue Coleman
See ASKWITH, Page 8
CELEBRATING OUR ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
high or low score
middle score
Your Application
fi
nal decision based on the
2 to 3 admissions readers
who score
applications from
1
15
four main types of information
highlighted by admissions:
read &
scored by
admissions
staff member
read &
scored by
senior
admissions
staff member
read &
scored by
territory
counselor
“When evaluators look at applications
overall, Sanders said, they place
emphasis on understanding a
prospective student’s individual
situation and resources .”
personal or extenuating
circumstances
high school performance
teacher recommendations
“other considerations”
(best to worst)