The University Record, September 7, 1999

Movin’ on in: Future ‘leaders and best’ among brightest

By Jane R. Elgass

More than 9,500 new and returning students moved into residence halls last week, amid temporarily re-routed streets to relieve congestion, and with a lot of help from members of fraternities and sororities. Women comprise 50 percent of this year’s class, according to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, and has students from every state and 100 countries. Photo by Bob Kalmbach
When Ted Spencer, director of undergraduate admissions, welcomed new students at the Sept. 1 convocation ceremonies, he noted that they were selected from more than 21,000 applicants.

“The Class of 2003 is truly outstanding,” he said, “because they have accomplished a great deal during their years in high school.” And because of their academic and extra-curricular accomplishments, they “can add to the vitality of the University of Michigan.”

“I can assure the faculty and administration that the Class of 2003 meets or exceeds all the measurements we use for admission,” Spencer said.

  • More than 70 percent were members of their high school academic honor society.

  • 40 percent were elected to one or more student government office.

  • More than 30 percent received all-city, league, country or state athletic awards.

  • Almost 43 percent gave recitals in such places as Carnegie Hall.

  • More than 70 percent participated in school or community service organizations.

  • Approximately 50 percent have published poems, stories, essays or articles, or were editors of their school newspapers or yearbooks.

  • Ten percent started their own business.

  • 3,200 members of the Class of 2003 received high enough scores on their advanced placement tests to enter the University with college credit.

  • More than 700 scored 750–800 on the verbal and math portion of the SAT.

  • More than 1,000 scored 30–36 in the English, math, reading or science portion of the ACT.

  • More than 240 had a perfect score of 36 on at least one section of the ACT.

  • The majority had all As in high school.

  • The Class of 2003 has the largest number of students ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class.