The end of senior year is coming up but my grades have gone down. I’m headed to UW Madison In the fall, but was put on the waitlist when I did an early application. This makes me think I was borderline acceptance. I’ve had around a 3.3 GPA for most of high school, with a decreasing trend, and a C every semester since sophomore year. I also have a 33 ACT.
I’m worried that since I’m only going to have 2-3 As this semester, along with 2Cs, and the rest Bs, that my offer is going to be rescinded. How likely is this to happen? And what can I do about this so late in the year?
Not an expert, but I think rescinding admissions usually happens when a student does extremely poorly, like a D or F, or when a change was made to your schedule that would affect the rigor of courses you were taking. Also, FYI UWM refers to UW Milwaukee. UW Madison is either UW or Madison.
the general rule is no Ds or Fs so as long as your C’s don’t turn into Ds, you are fine. Of course that is a general statement, some schools have different policies, i.e) if your final transcript doesn’t reflect your past 4 yrs , or something so giving a call to clarify would be to best
As long as you are looking at Cs, not Ds, and they don’t dominate the semester (like all Cs), then you should be fine.
Don’t beat yourself up about admission – you got in, you can do the work. Do think about your fall semester classes so that have a structure for success – for instance, don’t try to knock off a lot of gen eds/distribution requirements in the areas where you historically have been weaker. (For my kid, it was math/science, and he took neither his first semester). If you are looking for ways to “study strong” at UW, you might look at the First Year Interest Groups as they provide a structure where you have 2-3 classes together with the same group of about 20 students, forming ready-made study groups. Other advice: read the syllabus, enter key dates on your calendar with alerts; don’t skip class; don’t get so caught up in the “work hard, play hard” mentality that the “work hard” part gets less attention. Congrats, UW is an amazing place!
You were not put on a waitlist until the spring decisions came out, if you got in this spring your decision was merely postponed. If indeed you were waitlisted officially you likely will have heard if you are now accepted as they work their way through the list after some change and decline their admission.
With a high ACT and relatively low grades it is likely you had trouble keeping engaged/not being bored. Expect UW to be a much better academic match, you should thrive with the challenges.