Chance

<p>Incoming HS Senior, OOS (Illinois)
ACT:34
PSAT:220 (Don't know if National Merit status matters or not...guessing I'll be a Semifinalist)
WGPA:4.06
UWGPA:3.27
Rank: 61/508
Course Strength: All honors/AP Core
APs already taken:
Comp Sci A
US History
English Language
Calculus BC
Next year's schedule:
AP Stats
AP Macro
AP Gov
AP Physics
Honors English
Calculus III
Engineering elective</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
Job for about a year
3 years weekly community service
9 years instrument(in a youth orchestra)
Also have some easy community college tech courses to list</p>

<p>I don't know how UW Madison does admissions, but I'd be applying into the Engineering department. Also, I would like to know how good the engineering department is, and what
fields of engineering Madison is best at. I haven't been able to find too much on this, so if anyone could help me out it'd be awesome. Thanks!</p>

<p>Several things. You apply to the university as a whole, regardless of your proposed major/dept. Only your unweighted gpa- as UW calculates it (academic- don’t know what that is precisely- but I bet low phy ed grades won’t hurt)- counts. The only role the honors/AP et al courses play is in showing a more rigorous curriculum. With a low gpa and high ACT UW will wonder if you will do the work in college as you obviously have underperformed in HS. It also matters if your grades have been improving- if junior year was a lot better than freshman year. </p>

<p>UW Engineering is good- you can research the various fields and see the rankings for them with some online work (not going to do it for you). </p>

<p>Do your best senior year- you may need to prove you can get good grades.</p>