Waitlist Updates

Our second deposit deadline of June 15 has now passed.  We made a handful of offers in late June, but have no immediate intention of making new offers.  While we are not making any offers at the moment, we do think it is quite possible that we will make a small number in the future.  We have found this to be an unusually volatile summer because of the waitlist activity of other schools, and therefore anticipate that some people who are currently enrolled will make other plans.  We understand that it is becoming late in the summer, and that anxiety can be high.  We very much appreciate your patience and invite you to let us know if you are no longer interested in being considered. 

On a separate note, it is our understanding that a number of schools this year are requiring a binding acceptance of any waitlist offer--that is, that applicants give up their spots in any other law school class, or on any other waitlist.  We will not be requiring such a commitment, but we would appreciate it if you would withdraw promptly from our waitlist if you have made such a commitment elsewhere.  It will help greatly with our planning.

If you have any questions or concerns we can address, please feel free to send us an e-mail at law.jd.admissions@umich.edu or to call our office at 734.764.0537.  Thank you.

Waitlist FAQs

Why do you have a waitlist?
Every year, we use historical data to predict how many offers we need to make in order to fill the class -- but unfortunately, historical data are imperfect predictors. For example, we made virtually the identical number of offers in 2003 as we did in 2001, but in 2001, the entering class was 360, while in 2003, it swelled to 406; significantly more people said yes to our offer in 2003 than did in 2001, for no easily identifiable reason. We maintain a waitlist in order to cushion ourselves from these unanticipated vagaries.

We are also often asked why we can't make all our waitlist decisions early in the summer, which would allow people more time to plan. Again, while we have historical data about how many people typically withdraw or request deferrals, sometimes these patterns change. In other words, the problem with administering a waitlist is the amount of uncertainty in the admissions process. Because the behavior of our admitted students is to a great degree unpredictable, so is our waitlist.

When do people get offers? When does the greatest movement from the waitlist usually occur? When will you make waitlist decisions?
We have no set timeframe for making waitlist decisions, because we may learn of unexpected withdrawals at any time between May and August that require us to fill a seat. (We do not anticipate making any offers to waitlisted candidates prior to late April, at the earliest.) That said, important triggers are our two deposit deadlines, April 30 and June 15, and our summer-start and fall-start orientations, at the end of May and the end of August. Shortly after all of those dates, we have much more solid data about how many students plan to join us, and we accordingly use that information to make offers and/or to release people from the waitlist.

When is the latest I would receive an offer?
We try to be very sensitive to your need to finalize your law school plans, but it is always possible that we will have unexpected no-shows at the time of the registration for fall starters, and that we may therefore call waitlist participants as late as August 31 or September 1. We do everything we can to avoid that, but it has happened on a couple of occasions. If everyone we expect to have join us comes to registration for the fall start, we release all remaining waitlist participants immediately by e-mail, with a follow-up communication by snail mail.

If it's any comfort, please remember that ultimately, control is in your hands. You should withdraw from consideration whenever you pass the point where the potential benefit of being admitted is not worth the cost of the uncertainty and stress.

How do you decide to whom to make an offer? Is the waitlist rank-ordered? Is the waitlist broken into priority groups or tiers? How large is the waitlist?
We keep our waitlist small -- small enough so that the professional staff in our office are quite familiar with the applicants on it. The number of people on the waitlist is never static, however, since applicants are still choosing whether to participate through late May, and/or withdrawing their names from consideration throughout the summer. Because the waitlist is small and the number of people on it is always changing, it is not ranked or grouped in any way.

How likely is it that I will receive an offer? How many people will get an offer?
When making offers to waitlisted applicants, we evaluate our waitlist pool in much the same way we approach our overall applicant pool -- taking all application factors into account. In the last five years, we have typically made offers to 35-40 people on the waitlist. Please bear in mind, however, that we cannot make any predictions of any particular waitlisted applicant's chances of getting an offer or even if we will go to the waitlist at all; as discussed above, the waitlist process is extremely unpredictable.

Should I indicate that I'm willing to be offered a spot for the summer term (for which orientation begins in late May)?
Only if you really are willing and able to take a spot if offered! Our first priority in considering the waitlist is, naturally enough, to make sure the summer term is full; further, if you are willing to be considered for both summer and fall, that will give you a somewhat higher chance of being admitted. That said, we certainly do not have any bias against an applicant who does not want to be considered for summer; we recognize that the short timeframe for decisionmaking presents a special burden.

If you want to make an offer, how will you communicate with me? Will you call me, e-mail me, send me a letter?
Since time is of the essence in the waitlist process, for both applicants and Admissions, we will attempt to reach you by telephone. (Sometimes we will also follow up by e-mail.) If we do not reach you and do not hear back from you within 24 hours, it is likely that we will need to move on to another applicant.

I will be backpacking through Europe/working in a mission in China in June/July, etc. Would this be a problem if you try to reach me? Can I leave my mom/dad/roommate in charge of handling things in my absence? Do I need to do anything formal to give permission to this individual to act on my behalf?
When we call to make offers from waitlisted candidates, we are working within difficult time constraints, so yes, it will be a problem if we can't reach you. If you find yourself in this situation but would like to be considered for the waitlist, please call or e-mail so we can discuss your particular circumstances. If you do not make arrangements with us, it is unlikely that we will be able to make you an offer of admission.

How can I increase my chances of getting an offer? What should I do to let you know that I am interested? Is there anything I can do to make myself look a stronger candidate?
Indicating continuing interest and availability is a good way to stand out when you're on a waitlist. If you receive any new honors, awards, or grades, or get a new job or a promotion or take on a volunteer position, you should definitely let us know. If you would like to have an additional letter of recommendation submitted, that can be helpful as well. If nothing in your life has changed, but you want to indicate your ongoing interest, that alone can be helpful; feel free to send us a letter or e-mail. Again, because of the time constraints inherent in a waitlist, the last thing we want is to make a call to someone who is no longer interested in being called. (To that end, if you decide you are no longer interested in being considered, we greatly appreciate your letting us know that.)

Can I call? Can I visit? Will you interview me?
You are certainly welcome to call (or e-mail) if we can answer any questions; you are also more than welcome to come visit if you would like more information about the Law School. And we will meet with you and answer any questions we can. We do not, however, perform evaluative interviews of any applicant, even those on the waitlist. Likewise, we will not be able to give you an estimate of the likelihood that you'll ultimately receive an offer.

Will you provide any information about the waitlist on your Web site?
Absolutely. We will provide frequent updates on this page.

Now that I have been waitlisted, can I contact the Financial Aid office to start gathering some numbers?
If you want, you are more than welcome to submit any or all of your financial aid paperwork (the FAFSA, your 1040, and the Need Access form) to our Office of Financial Aid in advance of receiving an offer. If you do receive an offer, you will then receive a financial aid award more quickly. If you're not comfortable sending that information in without knowing that you'll receive an offer, that's perfectly fine too. Unfortunately, however, the Office of Financial Aid cannot give you an estimate of any need-based grant until you have received an offer and you have submitted your paperwork.

Candidates who receive offers from the waitlist receive consideration for need-based grants on exactly the same terms as those admitted earlier in the season, and most of our financial aid resources are devoted to need-based aid; people admitted from the waitlist , however, are not candidates for merit scholarships.

If I'm on the waitlist and Michigan Law is my first choice, should I withdraw from other law schools and reapply next year?
This is a very risky strategy, because it is impossible to know now whether next year will be more or less competitive than this year. If you feel that you put your application together in a hurry, or applied at the last minute, or did poorly on the LSAT because you didn't prepare or were sick, then it's quite possible that you could submit a much stronger application in a subsequent year and be admitted; that is not an uncommon occurrence. But going this route is definitely a risk, because you might end up with the same outcome, or even with a denial, simply because the subsequent year could be even more competitive. We recommend that you talk with a prelaw advisor at your undergraduate institution for some counseling about your options.

I'm currently accepted at schools A & B. Will informing you that other schools want me help my candidacy at Michigan Law?
If you are on our waitlist, we are already well aware that you are an appealing candidate with much to commend you. So telling us that other schools think that will not help your candidacy.

If I get an offer from the waitlist, how much time will I be given to accept or decline?
It depends on the timing of the offer, but in general, we try to allow those receiving an offer a week to ten days in which to respond. If we're calling you any time after early August, however, we may have to ask for a shorter response time -and if we're calling you on the first day of orientation, we'll have to ask you for an immediate answer.

If I get an offer from the waitlist, can I still defer?
If you know you want to defer and enter in a later year, we would encourage you to e-mail us at law.jd.admissions@umich.edu and let us know; we may be able to make you a deferral offer for the next year's entering class. (We  typically make about 10 such offers a year.) Please don't wait to let us know about your interest in deferring until we call you with a waitlist offer for this year's entering class, though; because our priority at that time will be filling our current needs, the answer to your deferral request is much more likely to be no.

To be clear, a deferral offer would be in lieu of an offer for this year's entering class; you cannot receive and accept a deferral offer from us and still continue to be considered for admission this summer or fall--once you have accepted our deferral offer, we would remove you from consideration for this year's class.  Please note, too, that if you request a deferral offer, you need to provide us with details of what you plan to do during your deferral year.

If your first choice is to enter in this year, but you would be willing to enter in a later year if this year is not an option, we would be happy to talk to you about that possibility in mid-June, when we will have a firmer sense of the composition of this year's class.