If you applied to the University of Michigan Early Action, you were probably fairly confident that you had a chance of getting in. You certainly weren’t expecting a rejection, but even that may have been easier to handle than a deferral — or what the University of Michigan calls a “postponement.”
The University of Michigan is one of the best public universities in the country, and the acceptance rate is 18%. However, that number is pretty misleading as it incorporates both the in-state acceptance rate and the out-of-state rate. In-state applicants are given preference, and have a much higher (albeit undisclosed) acceptance rate, which pulls the overall rate upwards. When you are ‘postponed’ by Michigan your application is bumped from the Early Action pond to the Regular Decision ocean, and getting into Michigan after a postponement isn’t simple given the low acceptance rate.
Before you begin working towards the Feb. 1 deadline for postponed application updates at Michigan, though, you need to zoom out and think big picture. In this post, we’ll help you augment your Michigan application while simultaneously doing your absolute best work, and in the best way, for your other applications.
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Before you give Michigan any more of your time, you absolutely must get the rest of your college application plans in order. It’s possible that you haven’t even thought much about anything other than Michigan. Would that situation be ideal? No. We like planning ahead, and most of our students are well into their Regular Decision applications before the early ones are even due. But we also understand that this isn’t everyone’s situation — and it may not be yours.
Whether or not you’ve started other essays and supplements, there may even be some work to be done on the layer that sits below the applications: your college list.
Reassess Your College List
A successful college application experience relies on a solid college list, and a bad college list can absolutely destroy your college application experience. If you aren’t applying to the right schools, after all, how are you going to end up at the right one for you? Now that your application has been postponed by Mich, though, you have an opportunity to recalibrate.
A strong college list requires 3-4 foundation schools, or safeties. These are schools that you are very likely to get into. They may be accessible because they have a high acceptance rate, because you would be an in-state applicant, or because you have another advantage, such as a parent who works at the school currently. After the foundation schools, you want 3-4 targets. Target schools are not schools you can assume you will get into, but they are schools that you are likely to get into. This is typically due to your grades and scores being in the top third of recently accepted students (this data is often visible in the Common Data Set if they don’t publish it online).
Finally come your reaches, and Michigan is one of them. We recommend students aim for no more than 3 reach schools. Applying to college shouldn’t be a ‘spray all’ approach. To be done to your greatest benefit, it needs to be thoughtful, measured, and have room for editing and revising. Pack too many schools in and you crowd your potential out.
Once you have your college list set, it’s time to get to (or get back to) writing.
Revise Your Common App Essay (and Write Your Supplements)
You’ve already written a full application for Michigan, and it’s likely that you’re hoping to reuse most, or all, of it. Bad news is that it’s highly likely that your Michigan application can be significantly improved. We can’t say without seeing them that your essays were a reason you were postponed to RD, but we also know that they didn’t make a big enough difference to get you in.
We know from experience that spectacular college essays are gamechangers. Every year we see students who objectively are unlikely to get into a top school based on their grades and scores pull it off because of how they tell their story. So, how are you telling yours?
Before you try editing or writing fresh, take a look at our guide to the common app essay for 2024-2025. In the guide, you’ll see that we set a really high bar for college essay writing, and you need to meet, or exceed, it to get into a dream school. Since you now also have a ton of supplements to write, it would be a good idea to look up our college-specific supplement posts for the schools on your list. We write dozens of these step-by-step guides each year to give students like you a leg-up on the competition.
Once everything is written and ready to submit well in advance of the RD deadlines, it’s time to turn your attention back to Michigan.
WHAT MICHIGAN WANTS
There are a few things Michigan wants from postponed students, as well as a handful of things they absolutely do not want — so read carefully.
Grades
The admissions officers at Michigan absolutely need to see an updated set of grades if you still want to be considered for admission in the regular decision pool. While your high school counselor may send these automatically, we suggest that students reach out proactively to request that they are sent, or confirm that they already have been. This set of grades should be even stronger than the ones you initially sent, so spend time studying in advance of any finals you still have to take before winter break.
Expression of Continued Interest
If you’ve read a bunch about deferrals and waitlists, you may have heard of a Letter of Continued Interest. Michigan does want to know that you’re still interested, but they have a very specific process for receiving that information that you need to follow carefully. Instead of accepting Letters of Continued Interest, Michigan requests that students submit “the Expression of Continued Interest (ECI) form no later than March 8.” To be seriously considered, though, you should submit it within a few weeks of receiving it, likely still in mid-winter and well in advance of the March 8th deadline.
While the Expression of Continued Interest form is not technically required by Michigan, and they say no preference is given based on when it is received, we believe firmly that submitting it in a timely fashion and with great attention to detail (and to following directions) works in your favor as an applicant. On the form, which is available through Enrollment Connect, you’ll be able to “type any updates or additional information that you wish to add to your application.” Do not wing this. We repeat, do not, do not, wing this. Whatever updates you send need to drafted and edited before they are typed into the box, especially as you cannot add to nor update the form before submitting.
Focus any updates on things that have happened since you initially submitted that you would have included if they had occurred prior to the Early Application deadline. These could include new leadership roles, awards or recognitions, community service positions, extracurricular commitments, or responsibilities at home. Don’t try to say everything; rather, curate. Focusing on 2-5 things tells the application reader where to look.
Scores
The last thing to think about for Michigan is your scores. If you did not submit scores with your initial application, you may self-report ACT/SAT scores up until February 1, 2025, the Regular Decision deadline. You should only do this if you feel your scores would improve your application, which typically means that they are scores you received after the Early Action deadline.
Anything Else?
If you are itching for more actions to take — stop. Michigan is very specific about what they want you to do (Grades, ECI, Scores) and equally specific about what they don’t want from you. “Our preference is to receive only the ECI…anything outside of this will not impact your final decision,” they write, and submitting more documents may even “delay your decision.” The very audible subtext is that such a delay would not be because they love you so much, but because they deprioritized your application, kicking it to the bottom of the imaginary pile.
Applying to college is nearly always daunting, and receiving a deferral or postponement can really amp up the anxiety. The best thing you can do, though, is to breathe deeply, act strategically, and continue doing your best work in the classroom and on your applications.
Every year, we help strong students gain admission to exceptional universities, simply by being themselves. Email us to learn how.