What does UW look for, in your own words. Gpa? What extra curricular activities? Do they look carefully at your HS freshman year gpa?
The UW most highly considers the academic strength of your HS record, your GPA and your essay.
From my knowledge (which isn’t perfect, but I’ve been through the system and spoken to a few from their admissions faculty):
They’re going to look at your HS GPA overall. If there is a distinct upward trend, it will help (as they’re holistic and will consider everything about your app before making a decision), but they aren’t looking at any year specifically. It is true that UW really cares about your story and what you do as an individual, but it should go without saying that you need to have strong grades and need to have challenged yourself with your coursework.
Not a question of “what” extracurriculars. Hopefully you have a handful, and hopefully they say something about you. It’s a good way to prove to them that you have an existence outside of schoolwork.
And then you tie it together with some really good essays. Have them read by others (English teacher, college counselor, etc) because they can really make-or-break an application.
In terms of raw stats, I think the GPA is the most important. I haven’t seen any stats recently, but if memory serves, an average or slightly above average accepted student will have around a 1900-2000 SAT and 3.8-3.9 GPA, alongside good EC’s and essays and such. You could probably find some actual statistics if you looked.
Of course, if you’re looking for direct admission to a competitive major or the honors college, the story is different. They’re both harder to get info on, but for direct admission I believe you need something like: in state, 2300+ SAT, 3.9+ GPA, and a lot of demonstrated interest in your major of choice. That may only be for CS though, and maybe some of this year’s DA’s can comment and give us some actual stats.
As for interdisciplinary honors, I’ve never been able to find any info on it’s selectivity. I can only give you one data point, which is 2300 SAT, 3.9 GPA, wait listed-accepted. Take that with a grain of salt, however, because in that case I believe the essays were quite poor.
In short, my take on it (some may disagree) would be this: If you think you’ve got a reasonable shot at an ivy tier school, then UW general admission is a safety. Otherwise, as long as you’re a strong student with a high GPA, it’s a good match. For DA and honors, I wouldn’t make any assumptions regardless of your stats.
And finally, all of this varies person-to-person based on essays, EC’s, etc. Also worth noting is that in a few years these stats will probably be too low, since college admissions certainly aren’t getting any more forgiving with time. And again, this was just my very unscientific perspective, I’m sure some people will have had different experiences.
Sorry for the long post, hope this helps.
How does DA work – if you get rejected by the program do you still get into UW anyway (with, presumably, a chance to apply again internally for the major/program)?