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

