Michigan R1 & R2 Pants Pooping

Thanks and good luck. Let's hope I hear from them shortly as well!

Cheers. L.

I got the e-mail as well but no interview request yet. Probably ding for me.

I have heard at some info sessions (not Ross's) that they 'review' apps in FIFO fashion.

So if you turned in your app early in r2 you have a significantly better chance of getting your apps reviewed and called for interview early.

Can someone who has had an interview confirm this theory?

Any last minute applicant in r2 called for interview so far?

I got one of those before the deadline... I submitted late Dec... No interview yet.

Like Lepium, I also just today received the email that the preliminary check of my credentials was complete. I believe my materials were organized well after the deadline because one of my recommenders could not access the online form and sent in a hardcopy after the deadline.

I have been told by people in the Ross admissions office that they are struggling to keep up with the increased volume this year. Hopefully we will hear soon.

I submitted the app two hours before the deadline.

I got a notification that Ross will start review my app on 24th.
Then I got an interview interview on 25th.

Couple of questions:

1) Anyone care to estimate how many spots (roughly speaking) are these 1,600 people competing for in R2?

2) pelihu, since you've been there before, what's Ann Arbor like? It seemed like a great place from the materials I've seen.

Cheers. L.

PS: yeah, I know it's a dumb post, but I'm nervous and posting calms me down.

I will take a guess. Michigan admits about 440 students a year. They admitted 289 in the first round and their yield has usually been around 60%. Assuming that the yield holds up for the first round (I don't know if this is a correct assumption or if yield might be higher or lower for 1st round) then 174 students will matriculate, leaving 266 spots open for the last 2 rounds.

Adcoms said that they expected 10% of applications to come in during R3, but as we know, admit rates are lower for R3, so perhaps 30 spots will be filled in that round, leaving 236 spots to be filled in R2.

Again, assuming a similar yield rate in R2, it seems like approximately 400 students will be admitted in R2, or about 25%. This is lower than the 33% admitted in R1, but as has been speculated, R1 applicants might be more qualified in general. The people that have their stuff together and have been planning for B-school for years will apply in R1; and most of the superstars will probably apply early as well.

Regarding Ann Arbor, it is a great college town. It does not have local access to major metro areas like some of the other top schools, but it offers a lot of small town advantages. Ann Arbor has easy access to the Detroit Airport, which has direct flights to all major cities. This is an advantage compared with cities like Ithaca, Hanover or Durham, where you will have to change planes to reach many destinations.

Of course, college football is very important at Michigan. Michigan is the winningest D-I college football program, both in terms number of wins and winning percentage. There is a story that Michigan taught Notre Dame how to play football when their train stopped near campus and Michigan students introduced ND students to the game. The atmosphere around campus for football Saturdays is incredible. The town fills up with alumni driving RVs and such several days in advance of the game. Everything revolves around football in the fall. The stadium is the largest in the nation, seating 110,000+ for each home game; and I believe they just invested $100mm+ to expand it. Every game is a sellout and has been for years (decades?) - and each game the PA announcer will welcome you as part of the largest crowd to watch a college football game that day.

Ann Arbor gets cold in the winter. If you have not lived in snow before (I don't mean visited snow like when you go skiing or something), then it will be an adjustment. The good thing is that the snow around Ann Arbor is relatively dry. It's nothing like the lake-effect snow that you get around Chicago that is wet and heavy and will soak right through your clothing. The snow around Ann Arbor is usually light and fluffy, so getting it on your clothes doesn't mean you will soon be wet and freezing.

The Business School occupies a prime location in the center of campus (unlike some others that are on the edge or away from campus). This is great if you want to have a more "college-like" experience. It will suck for you if you don't like undergraduates because there will be lots of them around. The B-schools is right across the street from the law school, and both are near the Student Union. Of course, Michigan is constructing a new building, but that won't be done until after next year. The new building will be amazing, but the old facilities will seem spartan compared with some other schools.

So, as you can probably tell, I like Ann Arbor a lot. The location was a great place to study law (which I believe is more of an academic pursuit), but might be a slight drawback for the study of business because it does not have easy access to a major city nearby. I believe the business school fosters a very collaborative environment and the people are nice and smart without being pretentious.

"adjustment". What an understatement!

The big variable is obviously yield. As has been speculated before, yield rates could end up taking a hit at many of the top schools who have seen these massive volume increases. R1 volume was up more than 50% for Ross this year.

Ross' location in the middle of a football crazed college town is a real differentiator in my mind. There really aren't any top schools that can match that and for someone like me, who did the small liberal arts thing for undergrad, it would be welcome change.

I also submitted a few hours before the deadline. Received invite on the 24th.

I recently talked with one of the Associate Directors, she said she is very busy with applications. Usually working out of the office. I believe that next week another round of invites will go out because I was only given the opportunity to interview until Feb. 9 so my guess is 2 more rounds of interviews from Feb. 9-24 and then Feb 24-March 15

Thanks for the extensive description, pelihu. It really helps.

Additional question: Do you know if they have a soccer team? That's the kind of "football" I like.

Cheers. L.

I have a funny story about that. My first winter there, I had to drive to pick up a friend. I got there about 20 minutes late and she asked what the problem was. I said, well, my windows had ice and I couldn't see so I had to wait for them to defrost. She started laughing and said I needed to get an ice scraper. For those of you that don't know, it's a thing that you use to brush and scrape the ice off your car. Everyone in the cold weather states carries them in their car. I had never seen or heard of one before.

Regarding soccer, I'm not sure. Most Big 10 (the conference they are in) schools have extensive sports programs, but my impression is that most good college soccer programs are in the ACC (North Carolina, Virginia, etc.) and the Pac-10 (UCLA). Generally speaking, college soccer is not much of a spectacle. For those of you not in the US, I will personally rank the importance of college sports like this (along with the percentage of the sporting conciousness they occupy):

1. College Football: 55%
2. College Basketball: 44%
3. Everything else: 1%

Hockey is really big at Michigan, and certain schools have storied histories in various sports, but generally it is humorous when people try to talk about how great their college swimming team or wrestling team or baseball team is. Nobody cares.

A few other top B-schools have sporting traditions. UCLA is a big name in basketball, of course. Football at UCLA is a problem because the Rose Bowl is about 40 miles away, and the trip will take you 2+ hours from campus on game days. If anyone needs another reason to go to Stanford, the campus golf course is open to students. That's where Tiger Woods played, of course, and Michelle Wie will be playing there in the fall. Duke has an extensive basketball tradition, but everyone else in the country will hate you. Cal has had some football success lately. From time-to-time Virginia looks as if it will challenge in football and basketball, but they always seem to come up short. Northwestern is part of the Big 10, but they are generally a doormat in most sports. The Ivy schools compete among themselves (after all, the Ivy league is in fact a sporting designation) but their games are largely a joke to the rest of the country.

texas has a pretty good football and basketball team (kevin durant is the real deal)...

and unc is a tradition rich basketball program... and they just hired a stud coach, butch davis, for the football team.

traditionally, the big public schools have the best athletic programs for obvious ($$$ and recruiting) reasons.

In terms of academics, I always looked at Michigan as Berkeley minus 50 degrees.

bump

my interview is on tomorrow....
I will provide some insights after I am done.