A GROUP OF STUDENTS at the University of Michigan have devised a tool that might have saved me several hours of nail-biting, and perhaps hundreds of dollars in application fees, had it existed for my school of choice when I applied to college. The staff of the Michigan Review, a conservative campus biweekly newspaper, has dedicated a section of its website to explaining the university’s point system for undergraduate admissions. The site contains the university’s official admissions policy, and, what’s fun, an “admissions calculator” based on it so visitors can see if they make the cut.
On first glance, the calculator’s purpose is clear: to personalize the injustice Review editors see in choosing applicants by race, which the university does for both undergraduate and graduate applicants. It is faithful to the point system used to evaluate freshman applicants, in which 100 out of a possible 150 points are generally needed to earn admission.
