316. University of Michigan - Jody Gore - Assistant Director of Admissons

Welcome to the College Admissions Process Podcast presented by Prep Expert, Prep Expert Office Live, Online SAT and ACT courses with the best score guarantees, instructors and curriculum. Go to prepexpert.com to guarantee your child success. I'm also excited to share my book, Straight From the Admissions Office, a review of my biggest takeaways from the first few hundred podcast episodes, it's packed with direct insights from admissions professionals and practical tips to help students and their families navigate the college admissions process. You can find all of the information in the show notes. Welcome to the cap where we are here to speak with college reps and other professionals in the field of college admissions to help answer all of your questions and guide you to every step of the process. So if you're serious about college admissions, you've come to the right place, are you ready? Let's talk about it. And now, here's your host, Dr. John Doranthay. Welcome to the cap, the college admissions process podcast. I am your host, John Doranthay, and it gives me great pleasure to welcome Jody Gore, who's the Assistant Director of Admissions at the University of Michigan. Now we had the University of Michigan on for episode number 12. That was released back in March of 2022. Jody was also on our panel at the NYSA Cat Conference, and it's a pleasure and honor to have them here for this one-on-one conversation. Jody, I cannot thank you enough for your support. How are you today? I'm good, John, and thank you for the good work that you do, and thank you for thinking about me in the University of Michigan. Happy to be here. Oh, thank you so much for that, and it truly is my honor and pleasure. So Jody, let's just start with a simple what's new at the University of Michigan. I heard there's something going on with early decision, and you have some other things to share. So what's new? Yeah. Yeah. Many, many years of folks asking us when we are going to offer early decision. We have finally pulled the trigger, and I can't officially announce that when the common application goes live in a few days, there will be an option for students to select early decision for the first time ever, and I don't expect it to be any different than most other standard early decision agreement students are encouraged to speak with their families, talk to their high school counselor, maybe even do our net price calculator, just to make sure that they're comfortable when they are making that early decision commitment. We are still going to offer early action. They will both have a November 1 deadline, so if students aren't ready to make that commitment of early decision, they will still have that option of applying early through the early action opportunity. And then we will also continue to offer regular decision with the February 1 deadline. We expect that early decision applicants will get a decision before Christmas Eve, or really before we go on our holiday break. And early action candidates will probably still hear the end of January. But in addition to just, or the early decision news, we actually have some other exciting news related to our application process, we're going to have two new opportunities for first year admission this year that we haven't had in the past. One is with our School of Education, we're going to have direct admission and entry into the School of Education for Teacher Certification Program. We offer secondary and elementary teacher certification here at Michigan. And the big one is for the first time ever, we're going to have a joint degree opportunity with our very popular Ross School of Business and Engineering here at Michigan. So students will be able to apply and be considered for that program. Well that's terrific. Thank you so much for that overview. And I was curious going back to the ED conversation, could you share with us just the reason behind it a little bit more? I noted a lot of people were asking for it, but strategically, why add the ED round if that's okay to ask? Well, you know, that's a good question, John. That was a little above my pay grade in terms of where those conversations were happening. But I think, you know, it really comes down to a couple of things and we have a very excited group of applicants every year. And students who are very committed because of family ties, other things that have drawn them to the university and we really want to give them that opportunity, you know, to show that extra interest now. Well we appreciate that. And you also mentioned the joint degree opportunity and of course the direct admit program to your school of education and anytime schools are changing and shifting and not remaining stagnant like the awesome University of Michigan, you could tell that more and more people frankly want additional things from you and it's wonderful to see new programs. Now you touched upon this a lot already, but can you give us additional overviews in terms of Michigan's standout colleges again, like the Royal School of Business, the College of Engineering and the College of Literature, Science and the Arch, which is finally known as LSA and how they shape the student experience. Yeah. And you know, in terms of standout colleges, I'd also add our very popular School of Music Theater and Dance. We have a fantastic conservatory here at the University of Michigan as well offering BFA, BA degrees. But I'll start with LSA because I think that LSA, our College of Literature, Science and the Arts is the home of the Social Sciences, Natural Sciences and the Humanities, LSA is what we all have in common at Michigan. So regardless of where you're admitted, you're not going to be siloed at Michigan where you're only in the classroom with students at Ross or only with the students at SMTD. You're going to have classes with students from this broad section of interest at Michigan. Engineers have to take Kim Kalkin Physics. Those are going to be LSA classes. At Ross, you have to take Econ. That is a, you have to take Kalkin Econ and that is a, those are LSA classes. So we are very interdisciplinary at our core and I, I sort of want to emphasize that, you know, as we get started. Engineering, very impressive at Michigan, 15 departments and 17 different majors, including our very popular major in computer science and data science, which actually coincidentally you can do through both LSA and engineering if you want to do that, but the program is housed in engineering. We also join have a new program in robotics and as I understand, we're the first research one institution in America to have a robotics program and I have to tell you, I had the opportunity about a week or so ago, I had some high school colleagues on campus and we went over and checked out our new robotics building, which is actually built and opened just prior to the pandemic. It was a collaboration between the University and Ford Motor Company and I had no idea the world of robotics. I mean, they're doing micro aerobotics, they're doing robotics that are robots that would help firefighters fight forest fires, they're doing these really cool things with the advancement of medicine, particularly in rural areas where there are these health care deserts, they're adding, you know, they're using robotics to fix those problems. We have a whole lab of working with drones, we have this whole lab working with marine robots and underwater pools and things like that, that's pretty exciting and I'll transition to Ross because Ross is awesome, you know, last year we did have the opportunity for the first time for students to apply directly into Ross, but Ross is a phenomenal undergraduate BBA program. We don't have majors in Ross, everyone is majoring in business and it's a bit of a smaller cohort of students that are admitted into Ross every about 500 students. Who is a great community where students are able to come together, collaborate, a lot of project-based learning and a lot of great resources for the students at the Ross School of Business? Well, I definitely appreciate how you talked about being into disciplinary at your core and I love the examples that you gave with robotics, that was awesome. Now, Jody Michigan, of course, is part of the Big Ten, which brings a lot of attention to athletics, but beyond sports, what does being in the Big Ten mean for students in terms of collaboration, academics and, of course, opportunities across institutions? Yeah, Jody, a lot of times people ask me what my favorite tradition is at Michigan and I will say my favorite tradition at Michigan is winning. We are very proud of our athletic team here at Michigan, some of the most successful in college sport and it does add a lot at Michigan in terms of camaraderie and spirit, but I will say there are a lot of students here who could care less about sports and that's absolutely fine, they still have an opportunity here, but we are proud members of the Big Ten Conference. We're charter members of the Big Ten Conference, I know there are a lot of new schools that are jump again in the last few years, but we've been there since the beginning and in addition to being an athletic conference, there is a lot of collaboration across the Big Ten Schools. There's what's called the Big Ten Academic Alliance where we're doing a lot of collaboration with things like research, we're doing, you know, we have great interlibrary loan system. One of the things that I think students get most excited about though are some of the study abroad agreements that we have, I recently learned the University of Michigan does not have a study abroad program where our students can go to Antarctica, but Rutgers does. So our students are able to enroll through the program at Rutgers, pay their Michigan intuition, get their Michigan financial aid to help pay for it, and then have a pre-agreed standard of how that credit will transfer back into the University of Michigan. Well we definitely appreciate that overview and I love the example of the study abroad program, But I bet that I will listeners. One thing that they're really interested in hearing about is that holistic application review. So we're going to try to pull the current back just a little bit. So Jody, to begin, of course, Michigan has a holistic admissions process. Can you walk us to how applications are reviewed? And what elements tend to really carry the most weight for those thousands of students that apply each year? Yeah. You know, John, and I really appreciate the opportunity to address this because I think a lot of times, you know, bigger schools like Michigan have this tremendous volume of applications. People assume that we don't take a lot of time with the application and honestly, that couldn't be further from the truth, even though we got, you know, 100,000 applications last year, every one of those applications were reviewed at least twice. And we put a ton of resources into making sure that our staff is fully trained and prepared to be able to read through the applications in a holistic manner. And you know, you know, talking about what matters, you know, what's important to understand is, you know, we really don't have the option of not being holistic because we, you know, this large volume of application, you know, an overwhelming majority of them, I would say, are highly qualified applicants to come to the University of Michigan and do quite well. So we really have to dig in beyond just grades, test score, and curriculum. You know, we really have to read those essays that students write for us. We have to sort of dig in to their activities, look at what they're doing, you know, what leadership have they demonstrated. And really, you know, how they are communicating that the University of Michigan is where they want to be. And that may be through demonstrated interest in their activities in a certain program. And then again, those essays that are, they write because we do ask them why Michigan? We do ask them, you know, what is their interest at Michigan and why they want to study, what they want to study at the University of Michigan. Oh, wow, over 100,000 applications. And yet you take a look at each and every one of them and to your point, they are reviewed at least twice. So with tens of thousands of applications submitted each year, how does your team, and I know you touched upon this already a little bit, but how does your team manage such high volume while still giving each application a thoughtful, contextual review? And can you share what specific qualities or indicators your readers are trained to look for when assessing applicants from such diverse schools and backgrounds? Yeah. So as I mentioned earlier, we do, we do put a lot of effort into training and resources to make sure everyone is prepared. And our leadership, our director, Erica Sanders here at Michigan, she is very determined that we will all go through training every year regardless of how many times that we've done it. I will do that for my 20th time this year, for example, so she doesn't think that I've quite done it enough. I mean, they're actually, and honestly, there are people actually that have done it much longer than I have at Michigan. And it's a great opportunity for us to come together, sort of, renew ourselves to the process. And, you know, what I will say is, you know, though our readers do sort of read everywhere and they aren't trained to read in a more sort of round robin style, we do train our admissions counselors to read geographically. So they can become more familiar with schools and their particular region. They don't have to necessarily worry about schools from the whole world. When, you know, sort of with that being said, our counselors, you know, they, you know, spend some time with the state, they really do become localized experts on the regions that they're reviewing for. We've formed a lot of relationships and honestly, people like you, John are very good about talking to us about the nuance in their schools, niche programs that might be there. So we really can get a good idea of what the student is, is coming to us with. Well, we appreciate that and I love how you talked about the fact that your team is retrained each year to set the norms, right, which may shift from year to year, but also to ensure consistency in those thousands of application reviews. Now when it comes to evaluating GPAs and coursework, Jody, does the University of Michigan recalculate those GPAs? And either way, how do you assess honors, AP, IB or even dual enrollment coursework within the context of each student's high school? You know, we do recalculate GPAs, John, and there's a really simple reason as to why that we do that. And that is because there's many different high schools as there are out there. There are about as many ways to calculate a GPA. So we kind of have to, and a big reason that we do that is because there are differing amounts of rigor at different schools. You know, we don't want to hold it against a student, you know, if their school doesn't offer as many AP classes as the school down the street, or maybe we don't want to hold it against a student because their school has decided they don't want to be confined by the AP curriculum. And there are a lot of schools that I read applications for everywhere that were that is the situation. You know, they want to actually go beyond that standard college board AP curriculum and they don't have any labels on the classes that make up their curriculum, that their students have the opportunity to take and for us to see on their transcript. So it is, again, very important for us to become experts to those schools. So we can start to see what the norms and what would define a rigorous curriculum in context of what the opportunity is in that school. And at that point, we will look at that in context to the grades that they've earned in the classes and the GPA that we've recalculated. Well, I appreciate that. And it's definitely a myth amongst parents that they think, okay, where ABC high school Michigan is only going to admit three from out of high school. However, the school that's five miles away, well, that school is going to have up to 10. Is that a myth? Is there any truth to that? You know, we do like representation for many different places. I will say that that is an institutional priority. But I've never, you know, and I read applications for the five boroughs in New York City. So, you know, I've never heard, you know, I can only have so many apps from Brock Science and then I can get more from stivocene. We really don't read applications that way. I appreciate that. And Michigan, of course, is still test optional? No. How can you share advice on how students can decide whether or not to submit their standardized test scores and how these test scores when submitted are considered in the broader context of your application review? You know, there are a couple of things I sort of think of when I read applications because I read applications, like I said, from New York City, but also from schools in Michigan. And, you know, there are sometimes where schools have, you know, test in policies where it is a, you know, pretty talented pool and the test score averages are very, very high. If I don't see test scores from a school like that, I'm not that concerned about it. And, you know, Michigan, you know, a student may have really good test scores in context to their community, but they don't see that they're within our middle 50 percent range. So they are a little scared to send us those scores. And I actually say, you know, your scores are usually pretty good sometimes in the context of your community. I've had situations where I've seen the scores reported in the common app, but maybe they had asked us to not consider them, and I've asked them to reconsider that because scores are really good in context of their school. You know, again, though, if you don't feel that the score is reflective of your possibility of success at the University of Michigan, you're not obligated and we don't hold that against you. You know, I feel like we do have enough other stuff, John, to make a good holistic information with all of the other information, particularly related to school profile, the information we give from high school counselors, the teacher recommendations that we ask for. So we really have a lot of other information if we don't have test scores. Well, you definitely have a lot of information, but I also appreciate how you mentioned scores in the context of the students high school. I think that's really important, and it's the first time that that has come up. And it points to the fact that students, parents, you really should be familiar with your high school's profile. Every admissions representative gets this thing called the school profile, which many times gives grade distributions, averages of SAT, ACT scores, and so much more information. You should definitely reach out to your counseling office, perhaps do a search on the internet, which usually that's how you can find it. And just familiarize yourself with what the admissions representatives are seeing in terms of your school profile, because time and time again, professionals like Jody report that they are evaluating you based on the context of your high school. So again, I repeat what you said, Jody scores in context to your school very important. Now, let's continue on packaging the overall application review. Jody, what role do essays play in the admissions process at Michigan, and what are you hoping to learn about an applicant through their response to the University of Michigan specific questions? You know, great, great question, John, as I said earlier, they really have to be a vital part of our review, and at Michigan, you know, with the volume of applications that we get, we just don't have the option of having an interview process as a part of our review. So the essay is sort of feeling that void. It's our one opportunity to really just have a window into who the student is. You know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, we really do sort of focus in on why Michigan, why do you want to study what you want to study at Michigan? But we also want to see, you know, more broadly, you know, what are your interests? What community are you coming from? And, you know, you know, maybe, you know, how do you want to parlay success at Michigan, you know, after you leave? So those are all sort of things, I think, that, you know, I get excited to see in an essay just, you know, to get a good picture of who the student is. - Well, I appreciate that. And you keep pointing to the why Michigan essay. So, Jody, I was curious. If a student is able in that why Michigan essay to demonstrate their understanding of the University of Michigan, your mission, your philosophy, your core values, what they did in high school, that's in line with it, what they plan to do, not only once on your campus, but to your point, even after leaving, if they're able to do that in those short essays, by the way, will that put them in a better light? And of course, there's never any guarantee of admissions. But in terms of that portion of the overall application, is that something that the students should, you know, focus on achieving? - You know, John, I think so, but, you know, I want to sort of preface that it should come in an authentic way. Not in a way where they're sort of telling us what they think we want to hear, but really, you know, there needs to be some real authenticity there in how that comes across. - Well, we really appreciate that. Thank you so much, Jody. And can you share how many students are in your incoming first-year class, and how do institutional priorities like increasing geographic diversity, supporting first-gen students, or maintaining in-state representation play into your enrollment strategies? - Yeah, great question, John. We this year have about 7,000 incoming first-year students at Michigan, that has grown quite a bit over the last few years. And that's been, you know, nice for our community to grow a little bit here at the University of Michigan. What I would like to say about institutional priorities, you know, the first thing is, you know, we are the public flagship institution for the state of Michigan. And we'll always put Michigan first. And at least, well, a little more than half of our class, you know, will be students from all over the state of Michigan, every county, all communities, you know, from the upper peninsula to Southeast Michigan, you know, we're really, really proud of how we serve the state of Michigan. But we also understand that students in Michigan, you know, gain a lot from having students, that they will get to know they'll become friends with from the rest of the world, you know. So having the opportunity to be an institution that attracts such a high quality student body from around the world still matters, still matters quite a bit, you know, we do want students from all 50 states. We do want, you know, a good international representation as well. And, you know, in terms of our institutional priorities, I always think back to a former president at the turn of the 19th century, I'm sorry, at the turn of the 20th century at the University of Michigan, James Angel, he said that he wanted the university to offer an uncommon education for the common man. We say the common person now. And you know, that's always going to be a value of Michigan. You know, we're going to offer generous financial aid. We want to provide opportunity to a broad section of students who may not otherwise have the opportunity for such an extraordinary education. - Well, that's terrific, Jody. Thank you so much for that explanation on the institutional priorities. And another thing that's come up a lot in my conversations is this thing called the common data set, which each and every college and university has. And it's really just sharing a lot of different data that actually might be very insightful for students and families preparing for the college admissions process. So the common data set shows the University of Michigan places a significant number of students on the wait list each year. But it admits only a small percentage from that list. So, Jody, can you walk us through how your team approaches wait list decisions? And what fact is determined whether and how many students are ultimately admitted from that list? - Yeah, Jody, I won't really pull any punches about this because the University of Michigan isn't a privileged position in our education. Because we can count on a good number of the students that we admit enrolling at the university. And that's going to probably be even more so now that we are for early decision where students are committing upfront. Now, even though it is a small percentage, that isn't always a small number. And I emphasize that because there have been years when we might have only admitted 10 kids off the wait list. And the last couple of years we've admitted over 1,000 students off the wait list. But you kind of hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that it is situational. You know, the schools like engineering, Ross that are very popular, honestly, they're rarely going to have or have the need to admit students from the wait list. LSA will probably admit more than a couple every year I mentioned before our School of Music, The Internance, they work their wait list pretty hard. They have to have violas in their orchestras. They have to have woodwinds in their symphonies. You know, so they are working those wait lists very, very carefully to make sure they have all of those, those particular areas of performance available for study at Michigan. - Well, we appreciate you pointing to your high yield at a very popular school like the University of Michigan. And we anticipate what, yes, the new ED round's coming in. It's going to be interesting to see what the future brings in terms of the data. Is there anything else that students on the wait list can do to strengthen their standing? I know you mentioned that it's obviously a lot more difficult when you're on the wait list for Ross, but is it more of a numbers game title of the factors? - So, John, I really appreciate you asking me that because when we get to the wait list time, we are really done with review. We are not considering anything else in the application. Any decisions that we use to admit students from the wait list will be based on the rating and application has already received at that point. So, we're not going to review any letters of interest, any emails that we get. We really, really emphasize to students that we especially don't want additional recommendations from counselors and teachers. We've asked teachers and counselors for enough. So, that is not something we will consider at all and we have a pretty hard line on that. And, you know, when we say all that a student has to do is go in and accept their spot on the wait list, that's what we mean. And we really appreciate it when students follow those instructions. - Well, I appreciate you saying that because many times students will do just that even though you're saying, look, just accept your spot on the wait list through the portal and we do not need additional information at this point as your application is complete and it's been reviewed. Many times families, you know, they wanna submit that extra school counselor or a letter from a teacher or whatever it is, but I appreciate you stating that you are not reviewing that. So, it's really not an effort that needs to be had. So, thank you so much for that, Jody. And this has been a phenomenal conversation as I knew it would be. Thank you so much for your time, your expertise. Unfortunately, it does bring us to that last question which always is, what are your top three pieces of advice to students and their families who are preparing for the college admissions process? - Yeah, and thanks, John. I agree. I think it's been a great conversation. And again, I do appreciate the opportunity to be here. On my, you know, I guess three topics of advice. The first thing is, I think this process is something you need to pay attention to. You need to put effort into. You need to stay on top of. It's also not something that you need to lose sleep over. I know that folks like me can often induce anxiety in this process, but you know, really do believe that there's a place for everybody. There is a place for everybody to be happy and be quite successful. So, if that's not the University of Michigan, you're gonna be okay. There are lots of other wonderful institutions out there. And beyond that, my second piece of advice is really for students and parents to be good consumers of information. And I'm not just talking about believing everything that you see online. I think that sort of goes without saying. But sometimes, you know, I think there are a lot of people out there that really are well intended. You know, maybe that cousin that went to the University of Michigan 10 years ago. But you know what, John, I was here 10 years ago and the University is a very different place than it was 10 years ago. Our application process is very different now than it was for those students. So, you know, your cousin may have some well-intitted advice to give you, but it may not be applicable here. So, talk to folks that really are the experts here, your high school counselors. And then my final piece of advice is talk to us because, you know, we're real people. We're here to help we give lots of opportunities for students and parents to engage with us through high school visits, through the college fears that we attend, even a lot of virtual opportunities. You know, we at least once a month have a virtual information session and a virtual question and answer. We even bring a current student on for students to ask questions too. So, there's a lot of great ways for you to engage with us and really ask the people directly that have the answers for you. - Well, that's tremendous advice. And, Jody, I think you know that I put the Office of Undergraduate Admissions obviously in the show, notes but that virtual program that you have once a month where you bring a current student or anything else if you have links that you want to share with the students and families that are listening and by the way the many councils that listen please send it to me and of course I'll make it available in the show notes once again Jodi this was phenomenal I'm so grateful that you came back on the podcast to share your expertise thank you so much Jodi thank you John again I appreciate you thinking of me thinking of the University of Michigan and we're ready for a new application you're looking forward to getting applicant pool with many wonderful students again well I really appreciate it as I know that this conversation is going to help so many students families and again school counselors as they navigate the college process so Jodi thank you so much and one thing left to say to everyone out there good luck with the college search all take care and best wishes thanks go blue go blue thank you for joining us on this episode of the cap the college admissions process podcast we hope you enjoyed the show if you did please don't forget to tell a friend and follow us on Facebook Instagram Twitter and wherever you listen to your podcasts I am your host John DeRontane and I look forward to seeing on the next episode of the cap thank you for listening to the college admissions process podcast presented by prep expert prep expert offers live online SAT and ACT courses with the best score guarantees instructors and curriculum go to prepexpert.com to guarantee your child success