@BrewCrew82 you are correct. collegedata.com just provides a range. It also tells you what the school considers very important, important, merely considers, or does not consider at all as well as the GPA and ACT stats for the entering freshmen class of 2014. Without access to more of the data, however, it is hard to “chance” any student that has exceptionally high ACT but low GPA or vice versa. UW does appear to weight GPA more highly than ACT, but I do not know the “formula” if one does in fact exist. I personally think it is better to look at averages/statistics for the entire freshmen class than a couple hundred online posts of “I got deferred and here are my scores”, since the latter is a VERY LIMITED dataset (i.e., couple hundred out of 30,000 admissions per year). Even with the statistics for the entire class you can really only make general statements regarding admission chances … nothing 100% definitive.
Yeah, most colleges are not going to have “formulas” that they post even though they may use some sort of metric internally to score applicants. I mentioned Iowa State because they actually have a formula posted on their web site that anyone can use to determine if they will be admitted. So, if these chancing sites are really doing their homework on individual colleges, there really should be no guessing (for those who get above the threshold when computing the formula) when it comes to that school.
Once my son has received final decisions from each of the schools he has applied at, I plan on starting a separate thread regarding the chancing sites. I would be curious if others experienced big differences between different sites like we did, but I don’t want to get too much “off-topic” in the UW-Madison decision thread.
@BrewCrew82 that sounds very interesting. collegedata seems to capture a lot of the results posted in this stream, but that could just be because it is most sensitive to GPA for UW chances. One problem is that there is no in-state vs out-state button AND it does not capture @3hsmke who said he/she was postponed and had really good stats (nothing about rigor though)
I don’t think AP courses are that important in UW admission. My son has only one AP finished and 4 on going.
Also, on his school Naviance, it shows half of his classmates who applied got in (in state), about 50 or so. GC told me that students there have 2 to 4 AP classes on average when they graduate.
When do we THINK the next decision release will be?! Hopefully out of state people are next!!!
I think its very difficult to get any accurate insight regarding admission chances by simply relying on posts on College Confidential or other predication websites. One of the biggest problems is that the sample size that these type of websites utilize to compile their data may not be large enough . For example, on the whole, most of the kids who post their stats on CC tend to be the high-achievers who are not representative of the actual incoming class that is admitted.
Also, with the “holistic admissions” process, many of these schools are looking at something more than mere grades/test scores (although as noted by @BrewCrew82 both Iowa and Iowa State simply rely on formulas). I read a MIT admission officers essay who wrote that its not about admitting the best student, but rather the best overall class. My son for one has benefited greatly by the holistic admission process. He applied and was admitted to Iowa as his safety, however, with a relatively high test scores but low GPA admitster.com gave him somewhat pessimistic odds of admissions to the following:
Ohio State - 68% chance of admission. He was admitted in the first round of notifications and awarded Morrill Scholarship covering 100% of tuition for four years.
UT-Austin - 64% chance of admission. He was admitted and offered admission to UT’s Liberal Arts Honors program which only takes about 120-140 students per year. Scholarship applications pending.
Minnesota - 57% chance of admission. Admitted in second round of admission notifications. Scholarship applications pending.
Tulane University - 44% chance of admission. He was admitted in first round of admission notifications and offered $10,000/per year partial scholarship in acceptance letter.
The moral of the story is don’t be dissuaded by the post on College Confidential or these prediction websites. College admissions is much more than a by the numbers game at selective institutions which utilize a holistic admission process. Having said that, it does appear that Wisconsin places a greater emphasis on GPA then do some of the other schools so my son may not get admitted to Madison but that’s why its good to apply to a range of schools which include reach schools, match schools and a few safeties. Good luck to everyone.
@sidthekid7. Check out IU Bloomington. They use weighted GPA when they review their applicants, and yours is quite high. In combination with you high test scores, you may even qualify for their honors college. You can determine that by looking at their website, they have the specific GPA and test cut-offs listed for admission to the Hutton Honors College. We visited the school and it has a beautiful campus. Several of their academic programs are also very strong. It’s an excellent choice for business, performing arts and foreign language study. I’m sure that many of this other programs are great too.
@fatherof2boys and @Candlewoodgal very helpful input. Comments are consistent with data that you can find online (e.g., 5% UW freshmen had GPA < 3.5, while numbers were 48% for Tulane and 33% for Indiana and not reported for Texas Austin since they apparently do not consider GPA … Texas and Tulane also appear to put more weight on EC’s than UW). However, “chance me” should be taken with a grain of salt and admitster appears to be pretty unreliable considering the comments of @fatherof2boys and @BrewCrew82
Lingo??? to a reply a few posts back.
Chances threads are just opinions and won’t change anything. Anyone can look at presented data and analyze it themselves.
Harsh- yes. Necessary- probably or the poster wouldn’t feel the need to ask. This is not about feeling good folks- better someone tell you there are too many students more deserving of a UW education. Anyone with high test scores and near B average grades, and who can’t handle taking AP’s may fold under pressure at a school like UW, Michigan et al. Test scores represent potential, but grades show what is done with that potential. Some do better than expected, others do not do as well. No warm fuzzies just because you want them.
@wis75 , the poster asked because they wanted a opinion of their chances, not a analysis of their character as a student. If someone asks you the time, do you tell them how they failed at life because they don’t own a time piece? You could have just said something like…“I believe UW puts a lot of emphasis on GPA and based on that this, I think you may have a tough time getting excepted, even though your other stats appear to be strong”. You didn’t have to go into a dissertation about how other students are more deserving and will make better use of the education that WI offers.
Nobody at my school has ever been denied with my stats, so it’ll be interesting. 3.5 UW, 4.0 weighted, 33 ACT.
@jpamsel Yes I am in a similar position with slightly higher GPA, and slightly lower ACT, and only a couple postponed from my school. (Around 300 apply ever year to UW-Madison from my school OOS). Although my UW GPA doesn’t necessarily compare to those who have already been accepted, it should be interesting to see if they take into account my high weighted GPA. Best of luck!
Thanks! Best of luck to you as well.
300 apply OOS from your school?! Wow! UW Madison is really popular at my school, and around 80 apply every year, I thought that was alot! Class size is 750.
A lot of the posters on here have incredible stats which make the school seem much more competitive than in reality, I go to a very rigorous private school and the accepted average from my school is a 3.5 with 28 ACT. Remember the people on here are very competitive and not always realistic
@majorkey101 Idk, based on some of the kids who got postponed in here, I’m not sure a 3.5 with a 28 will get you in this year, at least not the first wave.
@majorkey101 multiple websites (e.g. Princeton Review) claim 93% to 95% of entering freshmen at UW have un-weighted GPA >= 3.5 with an average of 3.83 (scale is 0 to 4 so I assume it is un-weighted). UW is considered “more selective” not “most selective” due to its middle 50% ACT scores (26-31) which are 2-3 points below schools like Georgia Tech and 4-5 points below some of the Ivy schools, as well as its relatively high acceptance rate (4 to 5 times higher than Ivy schools). These stats are supposedly for the entire entering freshmen class of 2013, 2014, or 2015 and are not just a small sample size. UW has a relatively high acceptance rate, has applicants with very good but not exceptional ACT scores, but does appear to attract applicants with relatively high GPA’s or at least accepts students with relatively high GPA’s
Has anyone from Minnesota heard yet? I know it is out of state but with reciprocity it seems like MN usually knows somewhat early.
Agreed @majorkey101 Most (but not all) of the student population submitting their stats here will be towards the higher spectrum of scores, simply because of the nature of college admission forums etc.@jpamsel We don’t know the full story on people who get postponed, due to the holistic admissions process, but we can make at least slightly educated guesses based on this thread. So I’d agree with you as well lol, it seems that UW may be accepting people who have higher scores than 3.5 and 28.
Then again, I say this without knowing what the averages have been in the past, and based on this thread which has pretty much only been in-state admissions up to this point.
Moral of the story, trying to figure out how UW will accept people is pretty difficult. Just be confident in yourself and be patient for when Wisco releases decisions. Best wishes of success!
I think the wait is getting to us and making us paranoid beyond reason. We should all just calm down :’)
@2016mnboy I heard from Minnesota about a month after applying in early September. I know so many people who haven’t heard yet and I’ve been so confused because I heard so quickly. I have no idea why they haven’t told most of their applicants.