Wednesday, February 15, 2017 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, February 15, 2017 // The Statement
5B
Changing trends in admissions
The Numbers Game
b y T i m C o h n & B r i a n K u a n g , Daily News Editor and Deputy Statement Editor
L
ocated in a predominantly middle-class
Detroit suburb within a 20-minute drive
of Ann Arbor, Plymouth-Canton Com-
munity School’s graduating class submits on aver-
age 300 applications to the University of Michigan
each year. About one-third are usually admitted and
choose to matriculate, according to Renee Eley, a
high-school guidance counselor in the district.
As an adviser to many students applying to the
University over the years, Eley said there has been
a noticeable trend toward higher competition in
admissions.
“It slowly keeps getting tougher,” Eley said.
Eley said she has noticed an increasingly com-
petitive admissions process turning away students
whom she would describe as otherwise qualified,
reflecting the increased selectivity of the application
process.
“Last year I had a student who had a 3.9 (GPA),
and she was accepted at NYU and some other highly
competitive schools, but then she was deferred at
Michigan, so she ended up attending Michigan
State,” Eley said. “There’s no reason she shouldn’t
have been at Michigan, and that’s where we get con-
fused, because we can’t really get straight answers.”
In the 2009-2010 admissions cycle, the accep-
tance rate to the University of Michigan for all
applicants hovered just under 50 percent. In the
2015-2016 cycle the acceptance rate was 29 percent.
This shift has largely been credited to the imple-
mentation of the Common Application — an online
college admission application that streamlines the
application process to more than 600 colleges — five
years ago, expanding the applicant pool.
Last October, the University released the latest
enrollment figures for the freshman class of 2016-
2017. The data showed a significant increase in socio-
economic diversity and the number of high schools
represented at the University, though admissions
officers at the University are need-blind.
At the same time, the report showed some dis-
couraging trends for Michigan residents looking to
attend the University.
From 2012 to 2016, the number of in-state stu-
dents in the freshman class decreased by four per-
cent, while the number of incoming out-of-state
freshmen increased by 25 percent. Simply put, as the
University expands its class sizes each year, out-of-
student applicants are the primary beneficiaries.
Over the course of the last two admissions cycles,
the number of out-of-state students who matriculat-
ed has seen an upward trend, largely at the expense
of Michigan residents.
Forty-eight-point-four percent of the 2016-2017
freshman class represents out-of-state students, as
compared to 46.5 percent in 2015 — an increase of
1.9 percent. Over these two admissions cycles, the in-
state student enrollment dropped by 254 students,
leaving the percentage of in-state students of the
entire student body at 51.6 percent.
While Michigan residents, in general, have
experienced greater competition in the admissions
process, the University has implemented several
programs to make itself more accessible to both in-
state and out-of-state students from low- and mid-
dle-class families.
For in-state students the University has invested
heavily in two programs, the HAIL scholarship and
Wolverine Pathways, which seek to improve the
socioeconomic diversity of incoming classes.
According to Kedra Ishop, the University vice
provost for enrollment management, the HAIL
scholarship encourages the enrollment of students
of low socioeconomic backgrounds throughout the
state of Michigan by providing them with additional
financial aid.
In 2016, the HAIL scholarship’s pilot year, the
University enrolled 262 students as part of the pro-
gram.
According to an October interview with Univer-
sity spokesman Rick Fitzgerald, HAIL also serves as
a way of ensuring that traditionally underrepresent-
ed minority students who come from lower-income
families in Michigan have increased access to the
University without violating Proposal 2 — a court
ruling that effectively eliminated affirmative action
policies at state colleges in Michigan.
“The first year of our HAIL scholarship experi-
ment was very successful,” Fitzgerald said. “We
brought in 262 HAIL scholars from all around
Michigan. Now, this effort primarily targets socio-
economic diversity because that’s what the state law
allows us to do.”
Another program implemented by the Univer-
sity to make itself more accessible to students of low
socioeconomic backgrounds is Wolverine Pathways,
a mentorship program piloted in 2015, for middle
and high schoolers in Ypsilanti and Southfield, Mich.
— two cities with significant populations of low- and
middle-income families — that provides students
with free tuition upon their successful completion in
the program.
And according to Ishop, the University has been
largely successful on this front. She noted that the
number of Michigan high schools that sent students
to the University increased in the most recent admis-
sions cycle.
The push to improve socioeconomic diversity at
the University has not just been limited to in-state
students. For low- and middle-income students
from out of state in recent years, the University has
become more financially accessible by the increase
in freshmen participating in the federal Pell Grants
program.
The number of students receiving Pell Grants
— federal grants issued to low-income students —
increased to 17 percent, up from 15.3 percent in 2015,
and the number of first-generation students spiked
by 5.7 percentage points.
According to Fitzgerald this increase in out-
of-state enrollment is partially explained by Uni-
versity efforts to boost the geographic diversity of
each freshman class. Fitzgerald also noted the Uni-
versity’s increase in financial aid packages to such
students has allowed the institution to attract more
out-of-state students that don’t come from upper-
middle-class and wealthy families.
“We’ve grown a little bit in non-Michigan stu-
dents … to diversify the student body,” Fitzgerald
said in October. “We’re looking at students of all
socioeconomic statuses around the country.”
The trend toward greater out-of-state student
enrollment at the University has not been without
pushback among Michiganders. In the most recent
election cycle, Carl Meyers — a Dearborn financial
adviser and Republican — ran for University regent
on a platform that focused on increasing in-state
enrollment.
“The University pushes the message that they are
a world-class University and we have an obligation
to take kids from around the country and the world
— and that’s great,” Meyers said. “However, try and
say that to a kid from the city of Detroit, Canton or
Traverse City that gets the rejection letter that says,
‘We’re sorry, it was a competitive year and we wish
you well on your academic endeavors.’ Their life is
going to change. And because that out-of-state stu-
dent took their spot, their life has changed.”
*****
For the 2010-2011 admissions cycle, the Uni-
versity became the first flagship public university
outside of the East Coast to switch to the Common
Application, joining the ranks of lofty names such
as the University of Pennsylvania, the University of
Virginia, Dartmouth College, Northwestern Univer-
sity and Harvard University.
In effect, the Common Application made apply-
ing to the University a quicker and more convenient
process.
As a result of the switch, many out-of-state admis-
sions critics, like Meyers, believe the University has
become inundated by out-of-state applicants simply
because it’s easier to apply.
“The Common App has facilitated students to
‘carpet bomb’ applications to different schools,”
Meyers said. “When my son was applying to college,
he had a friend who applied to 30 different schools.
He was accepted to about 28 of them, and can only
attend one. So what we’re seeing happen is that the
Common Application clogs up the admissions sys-
tem.”
The switch intended to help the University com-
pete against other highly ranked private and large
public schools that also joined the Common Appli-
cation. Ted Spencer, then University associate vice
provost and executive director of undergraduate
admissions told the Daily in 2009 that he expected
an increase in the quantity, credentials and diversity
of applicants as a result of the switch.
Mary Sue Coleman, who was University president
at the time, championed the Common Application as
a means to ease the application process without for-
going holistic review of applicants.
“For me it became a matter of why wouldn’t we
want to make it easier for students to apply to Michi-
gan?” Coleman told the Daily in 2009.
Indeed, many high-school students outside of
Michigan based their decision to apply to the Univer-
sity on the new, convenient online form. In the 2010-
2011 admissions cycle, 39,570 applied for admission
to the 2011 freshman class, an increase by 25 percent
over the past year, with most of the growth in appli-
cants coming from out-of-state.
Julia Wiener, who was a high school senior from
New York in 2011, told the Daily the Common Appli-
cation likely played a role in increasing the out-of-
state applicant pool. Wiener herself was accepted to
the University.
“A lot of my friends applied to lots of different
schools, and I think the Common App played a huge
part in them applying (to the University of Michi-
gan),” Wiener said.
In a 2011 interview, then-University provost Phil-
ip Hanlon said he expected the number of applicants
to be larger, but also less invested in the attending the
University. He added that deferrals for early action
also increased in response to the larger applicant
pool.
“(This year’s extra applicants) aren’t, perhaps, as
committed to (the University),” Hanlon said. “You
always expect that when an application process gets
harder, it’s more committed people who apply.”
The applicant pool continued to grow each year
following 2010, with 55,500 applications submitted
for the class of 2020. This represents a 85 percent
increase from pre-common app levels.
In the 2015-2016 application cycle, 10,959 applica-
tions were submitted by in-state students, who had
an acceptance rate of 42.4 percent. 44,541 applica-
tions were submitted by students from other states
or countries, and these were accepted at a rate of 24.5
percent.
With a more unpredictable applicant pool, admis-
sions officials found it difficult to control yield rates
— the percentage of those offered admission who
ultimately matriculate to the University — and fresh-
man class sizes regularly exceeded their guideline of
approximately 6,000 students. In 2014, the Univer-
sity hired Kedra Ishop, a veteran admissions official
from the University of Texas, to help curb over-
enrollment.
The class of 2019 was cut to 6,071, but the fol-
lowing year’s freshman class increased to 6,689; the
largest incoming class in University history. In sum-
mer of 2016, Fitzgerald told the Daily that the new
growth in enrollment was a deliberate decision in
response to the growing number of applications.
“The number of applications continue to go up
… and the University wanted to legitimately look at
things carefully and say, ‘could we accommodate
more of these students showing this great interest
in coming to Michigan?’ ” Fitzgerald said. “Could
we accommodate them without stretching ourselves
too thin or at great additional expense? And what
the University has decided is there is room for some
growth as long as we can manage it properly and
know what to expect.”
The number of incoming freshmen increased by
618 students from 2015 to 2016, while the number of
incoming out-of-state freshmen increased by 699 in
the same time.
*****
Amid the backdrop of this out-of-state flock to the
University over the course of the past decade, one
thing has remained true: The cost of attending the
University continues to increase.
According to University-released statistics, out-
of-state tuition and fees for incoming freshman
during the 1999-2000 academic year were $19,761
($28,968 adjusted for inflation). Today, an incom-
ing freshman from out-of-state can expect to pay
$45,410 in tuition and fees — not including housing
and other academic expenses.
Over the same period of time, the cost of tuition
and fees for in-state residents also increased.
During the 1999-2000 academic year, an incom-
ing freshman from the state of Michigan could
expect to pay $6,338 in tuition and fees ($9,291
adjusted for inflation). In-state freshmen coming
to the University last year were expected to spend
$14,074 — an increase of about 51 percent over the
past 15 years compared to the almost 57 percent
increase for out-of-state freshmen.
This financial incentive to admit more out-of-
state students is part of the reason Meyers believes
the University has recruited students from other
states.
“The reason I believe we are here goes back to
actions by the Board of Regents, going back to the
1990s,” Meyers said in a recent interview with the
Daily. “They began admitting more out-of-state stu-
dents to solve their budget deficit — that was their
safety valve. And their justification is that ‘we’re in
a worldwide economy and we want to admit more
students from other places,’ but the fact is they (the
University) need more out-of-state students to bal-
ance their budget because they weren’t as vigilant as
they should on the expense side.”
University officials like Fitzgerald, however,
reject Meyers’ claim that the number of out-of-state
enrollees was a matter of revenue, instead argu-
ing that international and out-of-state students add
sought diversity to the class profile.
Admissions to the University have been in flux
in recent years because of several campus develop-
ments. Ishop said last November in an interview
major administrative considerations — primarily
the year-long renovations of dormitories, and past
instances of over-enrollment — have spurred the
University to reconsider their admissions strategy.
Now that all scheduled dorm renovations are
complete, Ishop says the University can continue
accepting students at the same rate as this year’s
freshman class, which grew by 618 total students to
6,689 freshmen. As a result, the admissions depart-
ment is looking to “stabilize” the process for enroll-
ing the freshmen class — or ensure the class size is
controllable. This includes achieving the right bal-
ance between in-state and out-of-state students.
“From 2014-2015, and from 2015-2016 there has
been a modest increase in out-of-state enrollees …”
Ishop said in an interview in November. “Now we
are in the process of stabilizing the freshmen class
size, we would like to get to a steady point between
in-state and out-of-state enrollment.”
Regent Ron Weiser (R) disagreed with Meyer’s
characterization of admissions trends as well. While
acknowledging that in-state applicants should
receive preference from the University, Weiser also
stressed the importance of geographic diversity,
insisting that any change in enrollment figures must
be taken in context with trends in the applicant pool
at large.
“It’s important we have diversity of where people
are from as well as income,” Weiser said. “I’d have to
have a lot more information to come to any conclu-
sions … if you had out-of-state applications of quali-
fied students double, and the in-states down … then
those numbers aren’t bad.”
PHOTO BY AMELIA CACCHIONE
PHOTO BY AMELIA CACCHIONE
PHOTO BY AMELIA CACCHIONE