<p>I know that I am beating a dead horse, but if you go to a top 100 high school its almost impossible for UW caliber students to get a consistant “A”. As an example in my son’s AP Eco class 18 out of 20 went to Ivy league type schools, my son is super smart, but not in that league. As another example my best friend went to an honors high school in NYC he had about a 3.5 GPA in HS, at NYU he was in the top 10 out of 1000 (3.98 GPA) and the same at NYU stern. The HS does matter, I would like to see all these 3.8 GPA’s who apply to UW go against the 10 MIT students in an advanced AP Physics class in our HS. Again again and again the damm HS matters.</p>
<p>I agree…HS does matter…ALL GPA"s are not the same. I have seen post on CC where kids are “chance me” and they report all kinds of AP classes with SAT scores of 540 or 620… in subjest areas… I have to wonder…How the heck did they get into an AP level course?? Must reflect on the HS and class competition for the course. My D HS must have a class average of 95 in an honors pre- calc class and teacher reccommendation to register for AP calc. Kids working at that level will NEVER report a 620 on the math section of the SAT. Somethings just don’t add up…admissions knows this stuff.</p>
<p>I agree that high school does matter but I don’t know if admissions can know the rigor of all these out of state schools. With all the thousands of apps they get I think somehow that may get lost. It is unfortunate but I think at the big schools it tends to be a numbers game, at least initially, and then they may give you a closer look.</p>
<p>My son and I just attended the Admissions talk and walking tour at UW this past Friday. The admissions counselor who spoke, stated that “postponed” status is for those students that have good enough stats for the University to believe they would do well at UW, but who they are not sure they can admit to possibly not having enough spaces in the freshman class. She stated that they usually need to see the first semester grades from those postponed, as well as something else, like another essay, teacher recommendation, etc. I got the impression, if you demonstrate interest in UW Madison by another essay ,or something, you will stand a good chance of getting eventually admitted. She also stated that they can also put students on a waitlist but every year it is variable as to whether any students are taken off the waitlist…It is just a numbers game and it all depends on how many people accept their office of admission and how many spots they have left in the class.She stated they are shooting for a class size of about 5900 students for this upcoming freshman class.</p>
<p>Son from ordinary public HS in WI had an ACT of 35 and a SAT 2400 several years ago. Also had 9 APs, 6 were 5’s and 3 were 4’s. HS gpa high but not a 4.0 - unweighted. You don’t have to go to an “elite” HS to do well on nationally known tests. So far Wisconsin has had mainly good HS’s, unlike some states with a huge divide among the rich and not rich. UW takes into account that not all students are offered the same curriculum, students are not penalized because their HS doesn’t offer the most elite curriculum. It is not UW’s job to take all of the students from the east coast who get an expensive HS education but don’t get into HYP et al. There are far too many well qualified students who could do well at UW. As a state school the primary mission is to educate the state’s students. We benefit from those OOS students who choose to come. UW must obviously be doing something right to have students at “top 100” HS’s apply, but they are not the only good HS students.</p>
<p>Each year it seems as though the bar is raised higher. So many good students apply. They need to wait for those who apply in January before filling the class. It is not first come, best chance at admissions.</p>
<p>I agree 100% with you. The students with 3.8’s and over 30 ACT and SAT’s above 2100 are very smart and should be accepted in UW in the early phase. In my high school there were only about 3 AP classes and 10 students scored above 1000 on their SAT’s out of a graduation class of over 750. My grades may have been inflated because so many other students were out right DUMB, I was afaid of getting beat-up because I was so much smarter then 99% of the other students. Yes I was accepted to a top university as I expect others should and it made a difference in my future income. All I am trying to say is that my son had it much harder in HS then I did (thankfully) and his grades may have been lower because of the school he attended. There was an article in NY times recently (liberal trash) about poor Asians about 12-16 already studying for their SAT’s (hours a day) taught by a Asian Harvard graduate. There kids were as poor as poor could be with many scoring near perfect results. I guess someone needs to get low grade in college.</p>
<p>You may have increased your child’s chances at UW by living elsewhere or not paying private HS tuition. Too late now. No sympathy from the Midwest for east coast people with high incomes and less spent on their public schools for ALL students.</p>
<p>My children all went to public schools.</p>
<p>I am an alum admissions person and I get the updates. The one I quote is Counselor Update Fall 2011.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.uwalumni.com/media/chapters/rochmn/documents/pdf/2011Counselors.pdf[/url]”>https://www.uwalumni.com/media/chapters/rochmn/documents/pdf/2011Counselors.pdf</a></p>
<p>Barrons,</p>
<p>Can you clarify the GPA numbers that are listed on the link you provided. Is the GPA (for the middle 50%) of 3.5 to 3.9 an unweighted cummulative GPA including all 4 years of highschool or is it just core/academic classes? What is your opinion of the stats needed for an OOS candidate to have a pretty solid chance of getting in?</p>
<p>Barrons – Thanks for that pdf link. This shows the reported 27-31 ACT range that wmcg0859 was questioning.</p>
<p>To Need_coffee: Admissons only looks at unweighted GPA so the range of 3.5 to 3.9 must be unweighted and is clearly based on cumulative HS not a subselection.</p>
<p>^^ I’m not so sure it’s not limited to academic courses. The UW website contains the following: “We typically see unweighted, academic GPAs between a 3.5 and a 3.9, and a class rank in the 8596 percentile”. My question is whether “academic” means only the core courses (english, math, social studies, science, world language), or if it would include advanced courses out of other departments. My D, who plans to major in business, took Honors Accounting and Honors Law (both taught from a college textbook and every bit as challenging as her core courses), but I’m not sure those would be considered academic.</p>
<p>If the courses are on the HS transcript and computed in the GPA, then it is part of the GPA. That includes gym/PE. It is infeasible to believe that admissions spending the inordinate time parsing out courses to calculate subselection GPAs.</p>
<p>The recalculate using only academic classes/ No gym or other stuff.</p>
<p>Out of state needs similar to instate-in other words they are about the same. HS quality and course rigor also counts.</p>
<p>Do they really take gym out? What about like art classes? I think in Illinois Physical Education is counted as a core class because it is one of the only sates where it is mandatory.</p>
<p>My D goes to HS in Illinois and her school does not include gym or drivers’ ed (also a graduation requirement) in GPA. They do include health as well as classes out of the business, art, music, technology and telecom departments. I still don’t understand what Wisconsin would view as academic for recalculating GPA, though.</p>
<p>Classes that are counted for Carnegie units are counted for GPA.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I’m an exception because I’m a minority, but I was accepted and my stats aren’t that special (3.76 UW, 28 ACT) and I’m also OOS. I think the may be putting weight thing other than just a GPA or test scores. If you write a mediocre essay, your recs aren’t good, and just generally don’t seem interested, they’re not going to accept you in a heartbeat.
That’s what I think, anyway.</p>
<p>Being an “underrepresented minority” would make a difference- such as SE Asian (eg Hmong, Laotian, Vietnamese), Black/African, Native American, Hispanic.</p>