Some high school seniors are waiting longer than usual this year
to receive letters from the University telling them whether they
were accepted or rejected.

Undergraduate Admissions Director Ted Spencer said yesterday
that the University has sent 1,400 admittance letters as opposed to
2,200 at the same time last year. Spencer said the delays were due
to revamped admissions policies and a new application with more
essays. The figures he provided were collected last week.

“We started 30 days behind,” Spencer said, adding
that staff training and acclimation to a new process contributed to
the lapses.

The University revised its application process in August to
comply with the June U.S. Supreme Court rulings that upheld the use
of race as a factor in admissions. But the court knocked down the
undergraduate point system, which automatically gave 20 points to
all underrepresented minorities. The new application includes an
increased number of essays and requires several reads by counselors
before its admittance or rejection is determined.

Spencer said the Office of Undergraduate Admissions still aims
to notify students of their admissions status six to eight weeks
after receiving their applications. He added that modifications to
the admissions office and schedule could occur in the winter to
accommodate applications, if necessary.

“I don’t have any indication that we’re going
to be significantly behind anywhere we were last year,”
Spencer said.

Marilyn Brookwood, school counselor and psychologist at Horace
Greeley High School in Chappaqua, N.Y., said she originally
expected the postponement.

“It’s the first year — they’re right out
of the gate,” Brookwood said, adding that the University
needs to implement the new system carefully.

“People are going to be watching their process very
slowly.”

But West Bloomfield High School senior Michael Eber sent his
application in Sept. 30, and he has not heard from the University
yet.

“I had two friends who applied exactly 24 days after I
did, and they found out this past week,” Eber said.

But he added that he is not worried, in spite of his concerns
about the length of time he has waited and the worry that his top
academic qualifications could hurt him in the end.

“I am a 4.0 student, and I have pretty decent test scores,
so I hope something weird doesn’t happen with that,” he
said, noting that students with special situations or that have
unique talents are admitted over those with higher grade point
averages and test scores.

At the other extreme, Rochester Hills High School senior Andy
Putman said he sent his application in around the end of October
and got accepted to the College of Engineering Nov. 21.

“It was a lot quicker than I thought,” he said.

The admissions office currently has the advantage of taking
longer with applications because less people are applying this
year. As of last week, the admissions office had received 10,000
applications, slightly down from the 13,000 applications at this
point in 2002. Barbara McKelvey, head guidance counselor at West
Bloomfield High School, which sends between 70 to 80 students each
year to the University, said she did not notice a visible drop in
students applying this year. She did say that she heard comments
from several students who the University might consider borderline
about the length of the application. These students might not want
to write several essays only to get rejected later, she added.

“I don’t know if the goal of the University is to
make it that difficult,” McKelvey said. They “may be
restricting a little bit the kid who wants to attend the
University.”

McKelvey also saw more anxiety than usual among parents who
noticed their children were taking a little longer with the
application due to the increased writing load.

“This crowd likes to be in the first wave,” she
added.

But Spencer said he isn’t concerned because even if the
University receives a few thousand less applications than last
year, he knows that most of the applicants want to attend the
University because they put in the extra effort.

“They weren’t that serious about it in the first
place,” Spencer said, in response to students who would have
been more willing to fill out the old application because it was
less work.