I am a Maryland resident and I go to a very competitive/rigorous high school. Wisconsin is my top choice BY FAR and I would be the fourth generation badger in my family if I get in.
My GPA: 3.43 unweighted 3.72 weighted
SAT: 1270/1600 (new SAT)
Classes (junior and senior year): AP biology, AP world history, IB english (2 year course), AP psychology, IB anthropology, AP environmental science, AP statistics, and the rest of the classes are mostly honors.
EC’s:
- Member of my high school theater program since freshman year and have had a leadership role from freshman year to senior year
- Camp counselor at two different summer camps for a total of three years
- Staff member at a day care
- Member of an out of school rec softball team
I am retaking the SAT in October and sending it directly to the school for the Nov. 1st deadline. I know my GPA is not that strong but it has vastly improved since freshman/sophomore year.
Any extra advice would be amazing!
Oh and I have around 100 student service hours
And I also took AP government and politics!
Can you take the ACT in October? Some people do better on the ACT over the SAT.
Explain the upward GPA trend in one of the essays.
I took the ACT twice and did not get good scores on either so I have stuck with the SAT since about January. Will my legacy status help me at all? My grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, and all my aunts and uncles on moms side went to UW-Madison.
The legacy status is considered but the SAT score, equivalent to a 26 ACT, is in the bottom quartile of admitted students. The GPA is on the low end, too.
Legacy status usually helps give that non-problematic application the extra boost it needs to stand out. Your application will probably be considered problematic due to the low SAT score combined with the lower uw GPA. WI residents have preferential treatment (of course) so their admit rate is higher than for non-residents; consequently, they have a bit more wiggle room on the stats. The average Wisconsin resident ACT is around 28 (top 8% at least a 30). As @Madison85 has pointed out, your SAT concords to a 26. So you’d want to get your rSAT up to at least a 1300 (higher to offset the lower uw GPA). Figure out where you are struggling and then focus on those sections to maximize your chances of a higher score at the Oct. test.
You have one definite advantage going for you: the enrollment cap on non-resident students was lifted as of last fall’s admission cycle. Therefore, there is a larger number of accepted out-of-staters paying out-of-state tuition beginning this fall. Check out the stats which were just updated for 2016; total applications of non-resident domestic students increased by 94 last year, while admits increased ten-fold! Check it out:
https://apir.wisc.edu/admissions/New_Freshmen_Applicants.pdf
Good luck to you!
Thank you so much! This was really helpful!
Ditto on the above comments.