twenty on twenty. i'm reading an old newsweek from january. about the affirmative action stuff going on at the university of michigan. michigan, being a "highly selective" public campus is a prime test case because the university relies on numerical admissions formulas, which can be obtained under the freedom of information act. while the article was interesting and informative, it also revealed to me the DDT secrets and details of the michigan admissions policy. their numerical system is probably equivalent to many of the large public schools, like the UCs, university of virginia, university of texas and most state universities. so pay attention and listen real closely how i break this down.

first off, out of a possible 150 points, 110 are for academics. that includes a possible 80 points for grades and 12 points for standardized test scores. admissions counselors then add or subtract points for the rigor of the high school (up to 10) and the difficulty of the curriculum (up to 8 for students who take the toughest courses). applicants can get up to 40 more points for such factors as residency in underrepresented states (2 pts) or michigan residency (10 pts, with a 6 point bonus for living in an underrepresented county). being from an underrepresented minority group or from a predominantly minority high school is worth 20 pts. so is being from a low-income family. the same 20 pts are rewarded to athletes. students also earn points for being related to an alumnus (up to 4 pts), writing a good personal essay (up to 3 pts), personal achievement (up to 5 pts) and participating in extracurricular activities (up to 5 pts). men in nursing can also get an extra 5 pts. admissions officials say the scale is only a guide; there's no target number that automatically determines whether a student is admitted or rejected.

the first thing that one might notice is that standardized tests are worth only twelve points. twelve freaking points! are you kidding me? the way they talk about the SATs, as the holy grail of a high school education, it should be worth more than twelve points. at least fifty. if not more. under the umich system, it's worth more to be an underrepresented minority than getting a 1600 SAT. it's worth more to be a scholarship athlete than getting a 1600 SAT. but we already knew that. it just kind of shocks me how much all the crap is worth. personal achivement, personal essay, extracurricular activities are worth a grand whopping total of thirteen points max. so all those hours you spent at key club and honors club and dork club and whatever club. those hours are worth maybe five points. maybe. and that's if you took your achievements or extracurriculars to the national level. if you were a schlep like me, you probably only got one point for extracurriculars. do you know how many lunches and afterschool meetings went into getting one measly point? shiiite.



it's better to just have a parent who went to michigan, that's an automatic four points. then you get to be a cool "legacy" student. heck, even being a male nurse is worth five points. i wonder if they retroactively take off points for being a seven year male philosopher. and look at residency, worth ten points. sixteen if you're from some way out there part of michigan. dang-o. but that doesn't shock me, because the children of taxpayers deserve to go to their home state's public university. but geez man, ten points!



most of the people i know did not choose michigan as their school of choice. it was their safety school or their back up. everyone at michigan wanted to go to some ivy league or some other top tier school. nobody has michigan as their first choice (unless you are from michigan, in which case, michigan is great). all the californians and new yorkers who end up at michigan didn't get into nyu business school, or ucla, or berkeley or stanford, ivys or whatever. if you were like me, you sent out some applications to reach schools like rice and duke and hoped they wouldn't use your transcript for toilet paper. and then you found yourself at michigan. freezing and homesick and freezing and homesick and grumbling.



so how did i get into michigan? 70 for grades, 12 for standardized tests, 10 for quality of high school (thousands of dollars wasted on private school education will buy that for you), 8 for difficulty of curriculum, 3 for essay, 3 for personal achivement, 1 for leadership and service. infinity for intangibles. a grand total of 107. another hypothetical person from michigan, with parents who went to michigan, from an underrepresented minority has 34 points before any grades or achievements are even factored in. that's kinda nuts.



why do they not tell you this kind of stuff in high school? this would have been useful in structuring my high school life. i wouldn't have wasted my time on extracurriculars and studying for standardized tests. i would have boosted my gpa to astronomical levels. actually. no. i probably wouldn't have. but still. anyway, this is still relevant to us post-undergraduates because for some public graduate schools, the same type of admissions numbers are used. so i just wanted you to know. because knowing is half the battle. or maybe less if you're applying to a public school.