Hi, I’m heading into my senior year & looking into applying at UW Madison. One problem that I’m seeing is the cost of expense. First off, I’m from out-of-state. My ACT is a 34 and I have an unweighted GPA of 4.0. I have taken a total of 9 AP® tests (6 AP® Classes). I’m not super involved in extra-curriculars besides Chemistry Club & Orchestra. I am a 2-time finalist at the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair & won an award there from the American Institute of Astronautics & Aeronautics. I plan to take 7 AP’s my senior year. What are the chances that I get a scholarship or a grant or some other form of financial help?
What is your family able to pay per year for you? UW-Madison is not very helpful financially to OOSers. In fact, they recently changed a lot of their procedures so that more Fin aid goes to in staters. I believe Minnesota residents get some sort of discount but other than that, the bill is steep for out of staters. You have good stats but impactful merit money is hard to get. UW not on any list for having good out of stater money.
You need to figure out how much if any, you can even expect to get, optimally, anywhere from financial aid. Some kids find out that schools expect their families to pay every cent when the families can’t or won’t. Check
Out some NPCs as well as FAFSA EFC estimators to find out what you can realistically expect in the way of financial aid. Pick a few schools , yeah, go on ahead and include UW, and see what their NPCs expect you to pay.
If you have a limit on what you can spend on college, the first order of business is finding schools that will take you and that you know you can afford. Once you have that base covered , you can look at some schools where, financial aid and/or scholarships are possible.
You have good numbers so you should find quite the range of possibilities but we need more info on your family finances and expectations
I can attest to that - my MN National Merit Finalist son with an unweighted 3.97 GPA and 35 ACT got zip. Offered $10,000/yr from UMN TC, but UW Madison was the preferred school for him. UW’s International Learning Community and German House in Adams dorm was the closer. Sigh.
My understanding is that the majority of NMS finalists do not get any money from them. Many more students choose a school than the school sponsors NMS students.
I have a lot of friends who are out-of-state and got a full ride/tuition due to their academic excellence. I think it’s worth applying and seeing how it works out for you! There are also scholarships that they have that I recommend applying to. I applied EA (early action) and was able to start applying to scholarships early. I was able to apply to a few competitive scholarships and programs.
My freshman has an ACT 34 and GPA 4.0 coming in with 32 college credits and got no academic money. However, he did get a pretty generous music scholarship. Also got 10K at the U of MN. Unless you bring something really unique to campus, UW Madison is not generous with merit money. And many opportunities require applying separately so check the scholarship hub for opportunities. I wouldn’t hold your breath though. Find a financial safety.
I’d be very surprised if out-of-state students with academic excellence got full tuition / full ride unless they received a Chancellor’s or Powers-Knapp scholarship or something similar with qualifications in addition to academic excellence.
I wonder what program awarded these full tuition/ rides?