Is University of Michigan or Washington University in St. Louis harder to get into for undergrads?

The biggest practical tradeoff is that Michigan’s admissions odds depend a lot on whether you are in-state or out-of-state, while WashU is a private university with one applicant pool and is typically viewed as more consistently difficult overall. For undergraduates, Washington University in St. Louis is usually harder to get into than the University of Michigan in the broad, national sense. Michigan is highly selective too, but its larger class size and public-school structure make the comparison less straightforward than it first seems.

If you are comparing a typical applicant without the in-state advantage, WashU is the tougher admit. It tends to draw a very self-selecting applicant pool, and its admissions process is especially competitive across many majors because there is no public-mission preference built in. Michigan is still a reach for many students, especially for out-of-state applicants and for high-demand schools or programs within the university.

The main exception is for Michigan residents. In-state applicants often have a noticeably better shot at Michigan than out-of-state applicants do, so for a Michigan resident, the gap between the two schools can be even larger in WashU’s favor. For an out-of-state student, Michigan can feel closer to WashU in selectivity, but WashU is still usually seen as the more difficult admit overall.

So if your question is simply which school is harder to get into for undergrads, the cleaner answer is Washington University in St. Louis, with the caveat that University of Michigan out-of-state admission is also very competitive and can absolutely belong on the same reach list.