Twenty Michigan colleges have launched a program that lets high school students receive automatic admissions offers by uploading their transcripts to a free online portal, without needing essays or recommendation letters.
The initiative, called MI College Match, began accepting student profiles on Aug. 27. Students who complete their profiles by Sept. 21 will receive acceptance letters by Oct. 5, according to the Michigan College Access Network, the nonprofit running the program. Offers will go out monthly to students who sign up after that deadline.
MCAN Executive Director Ryan Fewins-Bliss said the approach removes barriers that often discourage students from applying in the first place.
“When colleges say, ‘We want you here, and you’re already admitted,’ it changes the entire conversation around postsecondary education,” he said in an Aug. 12 statement.
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Completing a MI College Match profile should take students between 15 and 20 minutes, according to the program’s FAQ. College admissions officials will review anonymized versions of each student’s profile and issue offers based on their academic records. Scholarship offers may also be extended through the portal.
Students will not receive rejection notifications on the portal—only offers. MCAN said it plans to promote the program through its existing relationships with high school counselors across the state. In the 2025-26 academic year, the nonprofit had 355 K-12 partner sites covering more than 49,000 students.
As of Aug. 27, 11 private and nine public colleges had signed on. The participating public institutions include two University of Michigan campuses, six community colleges and one tribal college. The University of Michigan’s flagship campus in Ann Arbor, which uses highly selective admissions, is not part of the program.
Kalamazoo College, a private liberal arts institution, announced its participation earlier this month. The college said MI College Match would help reach students who might not have considered applying there, but would not change its admissions standards because it sets its own criteria.
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“MI College Match lets us introduce ourselves to talented students who might not have pictured themselves here, and to answer the affordability question honestly and early,” President Karlyn Crowley said in an Aug. 12 statement.
For students from lower-income families or first-generation applicants, receiving an unsolicited acceptance letter rather than having to handle complex application processes could shift how they view their options after high school. Rather than asking whether they belong in higher education, the program frames enrollment as something institutions are actively seeking from them.
Michigan’s program mirrors one that launched in Alabama last summer. The Alabama Direct Admission Initiative paired a state nonprofit with the state government and community college system. More than 18,000 Alabama high school students received over 141,000 admissions offers during the 2025-26 academic year, according to program data.
Both the Michigan and Alabama programs use matching software developed by the education company EAB. MI College Match marks one of the more recent expansions of direct admissions initiatives, which have gained traction in several states as a way to simplify the college application process.
