Is NYU harder to get into than the University of Michigan?

In broad terms, NYU is usually seen as harder to get into than the University of Michigan for most applicants, especially because NYU attracts a huge applicant pool and is highly selective across many of its schools. That said, Michigan can be just as hard, or harder, in certain situations, especially for out-of-state students and for applicants to very competitive programs. The short answer is NYU often has the tougher overall admissions perception, but the comparison is not identical for every student.

For a student applying from outside Michigan, Michigan is a very selective public university with limited space for nonresident applicants, so it can feel extremely competitive. If you are aiming at popular areas like business, engineering, or computer science, Michigan can be especially difficult because those pathways draw very strong applicants. Michigan also tends to appeal to students who want a large, traditional college environment with major school spirit, Big Ten athletics, and strong academics across many fields.

NYU tends to be the school people more often describe as harder in the overall national applicant conversation. It gets intense interest from students drawn to New York City, the urban campus model, and well-known programs in areas like business, film, arts, media, and international studies. It is often a place where applicants self-select into a very ambitious pool.

So the cleaner way to think about it is not that one always dominates the other, but that NYU more often carries the harder-to-get-into label overall, while Michigan can be equally tough depending on residency and program choice. If someone said NYU is harder in general, that would be a reasonable shorthand. If someone said Michigan is harder for an out-of-state engineering or business applicant, that would also be a credible view.