These 6 MI Colleges Are The Hardest To Get Into

MICHIGAN — The hardest Michigan college to get into is the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, according to a recent ranking that looks at admission rates and other factors to determine exclusivity.

Michigan has six colleges on the 2025 Hardest Colleges To Get Into list from Niche, whose rankings focus on education and the best places to live.

Those schools and their acceptance rates are:

• University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, 18 percent acceptance rate. The university is also among the top 5 for public Universities and for sports management in the nation.
• Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, 21 percent acceptance rate. The college is also among the best schools for kinesiology and physical therapy in the nation.
• Baker College, Owosso, 37 percent acceptance rate. The college is best known for is nursing programs in the nation.
• Chamberlain University, Troy, 40 percent acceptance rate. The college is best known for is nursing programs in the nation.
• Spring Arbor University, Spring Arbor, 48 percent acceptance rate. The university is among the top 50 schools for public policy in the nation.
• College for Creative Studies, Detroit, 49 percent acceptance rate. The college is among the top 35 schools for film and photography in the nation.

Niche said ACT and SAT scores have been removed in this year’s rankings “to reflect a general de-emphasis on test scores in the college admissions process.”

• Related: Hardest U.S. College To Get Into Is Not An Exclusive Ivy League School

Nationally, the hardest schools to get into are:

1. Minerva University, San Francisco (1 percent)
2. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (3 percent),
3. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (3 percent)
4. Stanford University, Stanford, California (4 percent)
5. Columbia University, New York City (4 percent)
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (4 percent)
7. Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (5 percent)
8. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island (5 percent)
9. University of Chicago (5 percent)
10. Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey (6 percent)
11. Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (6 percent)
12. Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (6 percent)
13. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (7 percent)
14. Vanderbilt University, Nashville (7 percent)
15. Northeastern University, Boston (7 percent)
16. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (7 percent)
17. Pomona College, Claremont, California (7 percent)
18. Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (7 percent)
19. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (7 percent)
20. Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts (7 percent)

Three of those schools — Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University and Vanderbilt University — are what Forbes calls “the New Ivies,” 20 public and private schools that offer good job prospects to graduates as employers turn away from the nation’s oldest and most venerable schools.

• Related: Forbes Names 20 Colleges ‘New Ivies,’ Says Employers Prefer Them
• Related: This MI College Among The ‘New Ivies’ Employers Prefer, Forbes Says