<p>Out of state
ACT - 30
GPA - 3.6 UW 3.8 W
Very low GPA freshman year but i had a reason for that and explained it (moved from another country in the middle of freshman year)
Didn't take any honors/AP freshman or sophomore year but I have a personal reason for that as well and explained it.</p>
<p>Junior year I had 2 honors courses, senior year 2 honors and an AP, so not very rigorous.</p>
<p>My only extracurriculars are a bit of community service. No clubs or leadership or sports at all. </p>
<p>Supposedly good recommendations, stellar essays (working pretty hard on them, I believe they could make or break my admission decision). Top 25% of my class.</p>
<p>However, there is a (supposedly huge) hook. I'm a minority, moved here recently as I said. (from pakistan if that matters). I believe I have a huge chance of rejection because of my lack of leadership and mediocre grades and courseload, but many of my friends tell me I'm in the middle range and that affirmative action will tip things greatly into my favor since they're looking for more non-whites. Do you guys agree?</p>
<p>Also, I'm curious why there's such a lack of diversity? Do minorities have a low acceptance rate or yield rate, or even an abnormally low apply rate?</p>
<p>As to the lack of diversity at UW, that’s a tough question. There is the fact that UW’s prime goal is to educate the people of Wisconsin. And that means that most of the students there are from WI. And it should be no surprise that the majority of the population of WI is white. </p>
<p>There is also the whole white privilege thing that makes it hard for a non-white race to succeed in general in the US. Although, in my opinion, that is true of any minority race in any country (it would be much more difficult for me as a white person to do well in a country like Mexico than someone who is Hispanic).</p>
<p>There are many articles about diversity at UW, all you have to do is look.</p>
<p>I’m a US citizen but I live in Illinois. Oh well, guess my friends were wrong lol. They said being non-white would give me an advantage at UW Madison for applications because they are looking to be more diverse.</p>
<p>Ditto on posters’ replies. Being from south Asia is no hook (as opposed to southeast Asia), diversity of the state’s population yields the current demographics at UW. Your improvement in grades is good- your junior year gpa must be very good to offset the freshman one, and assuming sophomore year’s was somewhere in between. All you can do is apply if you haven’t already and wait to see what happens.</p>
<p>Interesting read. It seems as though (from the article) that the race of an individual, in Latin America, is more defined by their social status, not the other way around.</p>
<p>"Unlike the U.S where ancestry is used to define race, Latin American scholars came to agree by the 1970s that race in Latin America could not be understood as the “genetic composition of individuals” but instead “based upon a combination of cultural, social, and somatic considerations. In Latin America, a person’s ancestry is quite irrelevant to racial classification. For example, full-blooded siblings can often be classified different races (Harris 1964).”</p>
<p>And it was really a contrite example. I meant to say that there are countries where being White would make you a minority and would then also lack certain privileges afforded to the majority race. As examples, you can read this list <a href=“http://amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html”>http://amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html</a> and just replace white with majority race. I do not necessarily agree with everything on the list, it’s just an example. </p>
Bump, it’s been a long time since I started this thread. Ignoring the “affirmative action” portion of this post, can anyone else offer input on my chances? Thought I’d revive this since first round decisions are out and about and could be used to indicate trends or whatever.
You have a decent chance of getting in, but it is far from a sure thing as others have suggested. My S is a OOS URM (Hispanic) with a 30 ACT (35 M) and a 3.4ish UW GPA with 7 APs at a super-competitive school. He has only a few ECs, but has made region band all four years and just missed making state band this year. His rank in class is just outside the top third, which likely has dinged him despite the competitive nature of his school. Biology or Biomedical Engineering are his areas of interest.
Despite what I consider a pretty strong resume, he has been waitlisted/deferred at Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio State. The “top 10%” rule likely squeezes him out of our state flagship (UT-Austin), but he thankfully has acceptances at a number of very good schools including Pitt and Iowa. I would recommend the OP look at Iowa as a safety/fallback option, as they provide a very quick decision and have been very generous with their merit scholarships.
Competition this year is fierce at selective schools, especially so for kids with any kind of imperfection (i.e. so-so class rank) on their applications. Based on our experience, it appears to me that the role AA plays in admissions decisions at big state schools is highly overstated if qualified Hispanic kids interested in STEM majors are meeting resistance at multiple schools that would be considered matches (UW may be a slight reach) regardless of their URM status.