<p>On</a> Campus: Democrats object to changes to tuition reciprocity with Minnesota</p>
<p>Yawn, “Dems riled?” Shocking!</p>
<p>I would be interested to know how the academic qualifications of Wisconsin students entering UMTC compare to the qualifications of Wisconsin students entering UW. My anecdotal sense from experience at my children’s high school is that there is a discernible difference. By no means am I suggesting that UMTC-admitted students, on the whole, aren’t fully capable of succeeding at UW.* I am simply positing that one reason the tuition reciprocity program is popular in Wisconsin is that it gives some Wisconsin students a chance at a Big Ten/public flagship college experience that might not be available to them at Madison, where it is becoming progressively harder to be admitted. There will naturally be sensitivity to increased cost to pursue that option if it is, in fact, the only option the student has for that kind of experience.</p>
<p>*Much in the same way that the Ivy-type schools take pains to tell their rejected applicants that most or all of them are fully capable of succeeding at their institutions, which is certainly true.</p>
<p>I think there used to be a bigger gap but today it’s smaller.</p>
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<p>Here is one metric: sum of percents of (1) enrolled students with 30+ ACT scores and (2) enrolled students in top 10% of high school classes. (ACT reporting is about 90% at both schools compared to 10-20% SAT reporting. High school ranking reporting has decreased over 10 years but is still available for over 65% of students at both schools.)</p>
<p>-------ACT 30±-Top 10%–Sum—(Difference to UM)
UW 2010—35------56------91------+21
UW 2005—27------56------83------+35
UW 2000—23------48------71------+29</p>
<p>UM 2010—27------43------70
UM 2005—14------34------48
UM 2000—12------30------42</p>
<p>So UW remains more selective but the gap is narrowing. You could even say UM-TC is now at about the same selectivity level that UW-Madison was 10 years ago.</p>
<p>It would be worthwhile to note that UM admits to freshman directly to various divisions whereas UW has a single-gate policy. The UM divisions differ greatly in selectivity with the College of Biological Sciences, Institute of Technology, and Carlson Undergraduate program much more selective than other divisions.</p>
<p><a href=“http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/academics/profile.html[/url]”>http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/academics/profile.html</a></p>
<p>Good analysis.</p>