OT: MSU to have largest incoming freshman class in school history
I'm on an advisory committee at the local Community College for my field as an alum. The buggest issue we face is enrollment. When I went through the program 6 years ago, there was a waitlist for 1 of the 24 spots that year. The program is only 2 semesters not including the prerequisites. The class that graduates this month had 8 students.
And every year prior to this, we've had 8 graduates go directly to U of M, 2-3 directly to the VA, and 1-3 to St. Joe's. I know the starting wage is roughly $17/hr. Not great by any means, but not bad for 1 year at WCC. And the credits transfer well to EMU if they want to pursue an undergrad degree.
Another shift I have seen with my friends sending kids off to college - keeping the kids at home and/or opting for a smaller, community college to take care of the core classes and then transferring to a University. Neighbor did that with his daughter after her older sister went off and 'lost herself' Freshman year and had to drop out.
She applied to MSU as a fall back school. MSU rolled out the red carpet,actually was invited to a nice green carpet day, accepted her early, and to the Lyman Briggs dorm, got $ etc. and I was thinking at the time this would be a great place for her. They were very welcoming and honestly for the first year of LSA it doesn't make that much difference.
She did get accepted into UM and is happy there now, but the process while friendly was sterile and at times elitist. Totally get why some borderline UM applicants apply to other schools.
My son is a junior and has straight A's and a 35 ACT, 1510 Sat. He has received tons of mail from Michigan (his dream school). They have invited him to a whole day on campus- it's not sterile or elitist at all, very casual, friendly, address him by name. He hasn't received one piece of mail from State. Just interesting seeing different perspectives.
With those credentials, his dream will surely become a reality!
but actually not so. Go to collegeconfidential.com and read the thread on UM Early Action decisions last December. A LOT of kids with very high GPAs and scores were deferred or denied. My son is a rising senior with really high scores, and he will spend the month of December, until decisions come out, in a cold sweat. He shouldn't. He will undoubtedly attend a fine school and get a fine education. But he has wanted to attend UM since he was old enough to know what a college is, and he'll be crushed if he doesn't get in.
Things to help his chances:
..he should start working on the application essays and recommendations now (questions don't change much) and have them reviewed by teachers. Make them well written, unique, interesting, etc. The first pass for early admit may only take a couple minutes to stand out and be a go/ defer/ no go.
...show passion for what you want to study (ie robotics, math competitions, clubs etc for an Engineer) for UM, and why studying in A2 would be a unique experience.
...show leadership, growth as person in extracurriculars. Good GPAs and test scores are dime a dozen. Selective schools want passionate students who will add value to the campus in and out of the classroom.
...take campus tours now and make sure you are registered. UM camps are also a good connection. Reach out to a prof in the field of study. Make UM connections now mention in essays.
Best of luck to him and hopefully he will have a good Christmas present.
Really appreciate that.
State backed off their recruiting because they know they won't get him.
I had the exact same experience circa 2000. Lot's of recruitment by M, nothing from MSU. I thought that was a little strange. Both my parents were Sparties, I grew up fairly close to EL, took all my HS math through a special program on their campus, etc.
I was going by the standard university tours (not mail) which we attended the past four years.
In a nutshell the UM engineering and B schools tours were very good. The standard group tours (have taken 3 at UM) were too much " it's really hard to get in here". I am comparing these tours to other top school tours we took (Stanford, Northwestern, UCLA, Chicago.).
At any school it's great to be proactive and reach out early. MSU has a green carpet day for their top propects/applicants. Call admissions and ask them about this or whatever they call in now. It was a well organized day hosted by top faculty who emphasize "we want you, what's it going to take to get you here". There is also testing where you can figure out how much money you will get. Also you can pretty much be guaranteed a spot in honor dorms, not maybe you will be on North Campus, maybe not. I'm no Sparty fan but came away impressed with their recruiting efforts.
Good luck to your son.
Sterile is a great way to describe the class experience at Michigan .....
I've heard many parents complaining about how their 4.0 student "doesn't test well" and thus doesn't have the ACT or SAT to gain admission to an elite school.
Many kids who don't have "elite" intelligence can get a 4.0 as a result of hard work or the grade inflation you cite.
There are also many kids who, for a variety of reasons, don't have a 4.0...but whatever challenges/obstacles they have don't prevent them from scoring very well on the ACT or SAT.
My son is an example of the latter situation. He really struggled in our public middle school; we live in a very highly-rated school district. When he took the admissions test for the private school he attends, he scored at a tenth grade level on every subject. The school's administrators told us that they had never seen a kid with such a disparity between grades and admissions test results.
His grades have improved dramatically in high school, but he scored far higher on the ACT than what you would expect from someone with his GPA.
35 ACT and 3.2 GPA. Netflix addiction.
So in your son's case I would ask: "what does he want to study in undergrad" and then make the decision on where to go based on that one issue. If it's anything you would get in LSA then I would say look at getting schlarships at "lesser" schools where he would not only get less in tuition costs but also a chance to shine against his peers.
This would be especially true if what he wants to be career wise requires going to get an advanced degree. I'm sure Western would be a great place to spend 4 years kicking ass.....especially if they give any scholarships.
for MSU for 2017 was 1190. Average SAT for Western is 1140. So, pretty similar. I would send a daughter to Western over MSU, sadly. I would be too nervous to send a daughter to State. What if she goes to a football or basketball player party?
on the party scene. I was just saying there are other good public schools on par with MSU. Yes, MSU may be slightly better. But it looks like others are coming up to challenge them.
GVSU is a good overall option. Well respected. Very solid academics. Nice location. No rape culture and couch burning.
For engineering, I would choose Kettering and MI Tech over Sparty any day. I've worked with a number of kids from those institiutions and they are very sharp.
What's the +/- on applications received this year? Did they receive less apps due to the scandal, but accept more to make it look like the scandal had no impact. Because I know it has had an impact on where my kid is willing to go in 2019 and it's not MSU because of that issue.
Yeah. People like to mock MSU here, but they have some really good programs. Think ed school is #1, have #1 nuclear physics grad school, etc. Nassar situation is a debacle, but still many reasons to consider sending a kid there.
People talk Sparty school of ed up bc half of the high school teachers in the state seemingly went there. I read somewhere (US News and World Reports?) that M is actually ranked higher -- top 10 even. M's program is very strong on the school administration side of things. Makes sense since we put out Leaders.
What has two thumbs and isn't allowing it's daughters to attend MSU or Baylor?
[Points at self with thumbs] This guy!
that sparty was going to get hurt in enrollment was always nonsensical wishfulthinking. Like every BIG school, sparty has many more applicants than spots. They might have lost a handful of applicants ... maybe. I doubt even that the overall quality of their class ha declined even by a tiny percentage.
The fact remains that none of them could get into Mixhigan anyway.
Especially the in state kids, which is a damnable shame really, but that's a different conversation.
whats the acceptance and yeild numbers this year compared to previous years?
Much like football recruiting, the current SRs enrolling as FR in the fall aren't the concern as much as 8-11th graders. Current SRs have been thinking about and even applied to MSU before the MSM starting reporting this MSU Nassar stuff. Early deciders send their deposites in around Jan. I'd expect next year and the year after to be a smaller class for MSU.
MSU likely anticiapted that for this year so that 2-3 years from now they don't have a few dozen empty dorm beds and 1-2 fewer sections of 100 and 200 level courses..
I'm not really sure about that. MSU will probably take a hit, but quite small. It's still a very solid educational option.
The Nassar situation is horrible, but not everybody knows/cares about it. Not everyone considering MSU has that as part of the thought process. Plus we're still six months away from the next class depositing...if nothing really new comes up to a degree Nassar will be "old news".
Getting into a college these days has become even more difficult. What used to be back up schools for many are no longer.
Since most students apply to and get accepted at more than one university, schools like MSU accept a lot more students than actually enroll. The schools develop statistics to make a calculation of what percentage of acceptance letters they send out will enroll. Throw a scandal into the mix, and that calculus has to be adjusted, and nobody really knows to what extent the scandal will limit enrollees.
Long story short, almost certainly MSU sent out a lot more acceptance letters (lowered their standards slightly) than in the past with expectation that a higher percentage of accepted students will decline to come to MSU.
This is a big part of it, I think. Michigan overhauled the admission process in '03 or '04 (after the supreme court cases) and it got much more difficult to apply (mulitple essays, and not easy to find-replace from Ivy League apps). Admissions had no data on how it was going to affect the matriculation rate and they ended up with about 10% more freshman than they actually wanted. It was a real mess for housing as they had to find the equivalent of another dorm worth of beds to accomadate. Lot's of freshman in places like Baits, Northwood, and study lounges that year.
At this point it is a money grab. Get as many tuition $s as possible to compensate for declining donations and to help fund expenses and settlements related to Nassar, etc. Also, increasing enrollment will help in arguing for greater state aid in the MI State legislature.
As U of M gets more and more competitive, the pool of potential students for Sparty keeps growing. My daughter is a high school senior and I can tell you that a large proportion of the population of students only applying to 2 schools -- M as primary and Sparty as back-up plan -- is still very much a thing.
I don't care about MSU. They are a good school and provide a fine education for many students. I get it when big stories break, but the amount of random MSU posts on here is unbecoming.
Well the world needs ditch diggers too.....
Note that they're not reporting a record number of applications, which is the usual way a school PRs how desirable they are. I doubt they'll be getting nearly as many of those this year--the class matriculating in fall are last year's applicants, who applied months before the Nassar scandal. Remember kids, if your tinder swipes have dried up, tell everyone how many tinder dates you're going on.
Mizzou had national attention on them due to racial tensions, protests, hunger strikes and threats of the football team boycotting a game in 2015. According to the NY Times article from last July enrollment has fallen more than 35%, seven dorms are closed, cutting 400 positions. So racial bigotry matters to pospective students but a culture of condoning sexual predators doesn't register.