Undergraduate Students: Admissions & Enrollment

Goals

The University of Michigan’s admissions and enrollment process reflects a fundamental commitment to access and academic excellence. The institution seeks to enroll first-year students who have demonstrated strong academic achievement, and whose varied backgrounds and experiences enrich the campus community.

The university understands that for many students, the ability to attend the University of Michigan depends significantly on financial considerations. Financial aid plays a crucial role in making attendance possible for qualified students across different economic backgrounds. Chapter 3 – Undergraduate Affordability provides an in-depth examination of how the university’s financial aid programs support both the initial recruitment of promising students and their continued success at the institution.

Overview

This chapter examines trends in applications, admissions, and enrollment for both first-year undergraduates and incoming transfer students at the University of Michigan.

The institution continues to experience significant growth in student interest, with application volumes having nearly doubled over the last decade. As one of the nation’s highly selective universities, U-M extends admission offers to less than half of its applicants. Over the past decade, the entering first-year class size has grown by 2,107 students, representing an approximate 35% increase in new student enrollment. Transfer student enrollment has increased substantially as well: 645 more new transfers enrolled in Fall 2025 compared to Fall 2015, an increase of 73%

The university provides students with a comprehensive educational experience, offering more than 257 undergraduate academic programs, extensive study abroad opportunities, a vibrant student life featuring over 1,700 student organizations, and a robust athletic tradition with 27 NCAA Division I teams. The institution’s dynamic campus community creates one of the nation’s most intellectually and culturally stimulating academic settings.

The university maintains a commitment to enrolling a geographically diverse student body, actively recruiting students from across Michigan, the United States, and internationally. The Fall 2025 undergraduate population reflected this commitment, with students representing all 83 Michigan counties, 57 states and territories, and 104 countries. Michigan residents comprise 52 percent of the total undergraduate population.

U-M also considers institutional priorities like recruiting students from diverse backgrounds, geographic diversity, first-generation college students, and maintaining balance across different schools and colleges within the university.  Each entering class brings together students with wide-ranging origins, backgrounds, and experiences, contributing to a richly diverse campus community with varied interests and perspectives. For a detailed examination of how the university’s demographic composition has evolved over time, see Chapter 7 – Campus Demographics.

Applications, Admission Offers, and Enrollment

U-M first-year undergraduate applications have nearly doubled since 2016. Admission offers have remained fairly constant and enrollment has increased at an average annual rate of 3 percent over the same time frame.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

Over the last decade, new first-year undergraduate application totals for the University of Michigan trended upward through the Fall 2018 enrollment period. This growth is largely attributed to the adoption of the Common Application, which makes it simpler for students to include the University of Michigan on the list of institutions they apply to.

The trend flattened for Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 applications presumably due to the uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The upward trend resumed for Fall 2021 and Fall 2022 as classes were once again offered in-person rather than largely online. In addition, the university adopted policies making submission of standardized test scores optional, while encouraging applicants to consider sending the score from any of several standardized tests available to high school students.  Fall 2025 marked the first time applications exceeded six figures.

Selectivity & Yield Rates

The trend in selectivity rates is mainly influenced by the growth in applicant numbers.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

Selectivity is the ratio of admissions offers to total applications. In the selectivity chart above, a lower percentage reflects the high standards for student quality across a broad range of factors in the admissions process.  Application volume also influences selectivity, particularly among out-of-state applicants, where demand is especially high.

Yield is the ratio of enrollment numbers to admission offers.  Yield is lower for out-of-state students compared to in-state students, likely due to the lower net cost for residents due to lower tuition rates and U-M’s aid policies.

Transfer Students

U-M transfer applications and enrollment have increased compared to ten years ago.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

Over the last decade, undergraduate transfer application totals for the University of Michigan have trended upward, although more slowly than have new first-year applications (see 2.1 above). New transfer enrollment has increased at an average annual rate of 5.6 percent and is 73 percent larger than in 2015 and is growing at a higher rate than for first-year students.

The majority of students who transfer to U-M come from 4-year institutions.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

Most U-M transfer students come from 4-year institutions. The university offers several programs to support transfer student success. Transfer Connections is a Learning Community designed to connect first-semester transfer students with upper-level peer mentors to ease the transition to U-M. The Undergraduate Research Opportunity Changing Gears program is also designed for community college transfer students. Students in the program become a part of an ongoing research project and work alongside U-M faculty and scholars on groundbreaking research. Students learn valuable academic skills, applying these skills to their research projects, academics, and future career opportunities while receiving academic credit or compensation for their efforts.

The incoming school type is unknown for some transfer students.

The trends in selectivity and yield for undergraduate transfer students have remained relatively unchanged over the past decade.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

Selectivity is the ratio of admission offers to total applications. Yield is the ratio of enrollment numbers to admission offers.  Lower selectivity percentage means the university is more selective in choosing among applicants.  Higher yield percentage means greater success in enrolling admitted students.

High School & Transfer GPA

High School GPAs for entering U-M students have risen over the past decade.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

Data on new U-M first-year undergraduates confirms that students who enroll at U-M are well-prepared. 39% of Fall 2025 first-years had a 4.0 GPA, compared with 21% for Fall 2015. Furthermore, the level of academic achievement of new first-years has increased. High school grading practices varied during the COVID-19 pandemic and comparisons with pre-pandemic years should take these differences into account.

The University of Michigan calculates each student’s high school GPA on a 4.0 scale after eliminating any weighting from the applicant’s high school transcript.

Undergraduate degree-seeking transfer students entered with slightly higher grade point averages in Fall 2025 than 10 years earlier.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

About 93 percent of new transfer students starting in the Fall 2025 term entered with sophomore or junior academic standing, which is based on the number of credits transferred to their U-M degree programs.

Total Undergraduate Headcount

Total undergraduate enrollment in 2025 was 25 percent higher than in 2015. The size of the 2025 class of first-year undergraduates was 35 percent higher.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

In Fall 2025, U-M enrolled 35,358 undergraduate students in the fifteen schools and colleges that administer undergraduate programs.

   2.5.2 Undergraduate Student Fall Enrollment Headcount by School and College, Fall 2021-2025. SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

Faculty from the School for Environment & Sustainability teach many of the courses for the Program in the Environment, although the students in the program are enrolled in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. The School for Environment & Sustainability does not accept new undergraduate students but allows students to return to an undergraduate program if enrolled in one in the past when the school offered such programs.

The School of Social Work offers a minor in community action and social change open to undergraduate students from twelve of the university’s schools and colleges. The School of Social Work does not have an undergraduate degree program.

The School of Information, School of Public Health, Ford School of Public Policy, and Dental Hygiene program in the School of Dentistry do not directly admit first-year undergraduate students. Rather, they require a Cross-Campus Transfer Application to transfer from a different U-M school/college, most commonly from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Growth in enrollment by headcount over the last 10 years has been largest in LSA, Engineering, Ross Business School and Kinesiology.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

Enrollment counts are excluded from this chart for students in the Medical School MedPrep non-degree program, readmitted students to the SEAS undergraduate program, and students who started the Pharm.D. program without holding a bachelor’s degree.

Several schools/colleges recently began directly admitting students instead of having them start their academic career in the College of Literature, Science, & the Arts; Taubman began in 2013; Ross began in 2017; Marsal began in 2023; Pharmacy began in 2024. This explains the spike in total enrollment for these schools/colleges in the respective years.

Geographic Origin of Undergraduate Students

U-M has grown the share of undergraduate out-of-state students, but continues to maintain a student body that is over half from Michigan.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

A student’s geographic origin is defined according to the address used in the application for admission and citizenship status. The geographic origin of a student is similar, but not identical, to residency status, which is used to determine tuition to be paid.

The distribution of in-state and out-of-state undergraduates can be related to a variety of factors including the economy, state population demographics, and more. One factor of note is the decreasing annual headcount of high school graduates in the state of Michigan. In 2008, the number of Michigan public high school graduates peaked at 117,487¹. By 2030, the total number of public high school graduates has been projected to drop to 100,430², about 17 percent below the 2008 peak.

Michigan enrolls one of the highest fractions of out-of-state plus international new first-year undergraduate students compared to select public university peers.

   SOURCE: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS); U-M Student Data Sets

U-M enrolls a relatively high proportion of students from outside Michigan compared to its benchmarking peers. However, compared to flagship public universities (the primary public research institutions within each state), U-M ranks #14, according to Fall 2022 data.

IPEDS collects geographic origin data only for new first-year undergraduate students. A list of the public peers used for comparison on this page is found in Appendix A.

Enrollment Maps

The U-M enrolls undergraduate students from every county in Michigan. Oakland, Wayne, Washtenaw, Macomb, and Kent counties are home to the most Fall 2025 first-year U-M enrollees.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

After Michigan, the states of New York, Illinois and California are home to the highest number of U-M undergraduate students. U-M enrolls undergraduate students from every US state.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets

3,446 undergraduate students from 104 countries enrolled at U-M for Fall 2025. The countries with the most U-M first year students are China, India, Canada, and South Korea.

   SOURCE: U-M Student Data Sets