<p>Wow, I never realized my high school GPA (~3.2) was so low relative to typical admits.</p>
<p>The admitted numbers reflect 50% of those admitted- 25% are below (and above) those stats. Also, some of those admitted, especially above the midrange, will probably select their alternate school. So many factors. Also- justtotalk your overall gpa may be lower than your jr/sr gpa- improvement matters to the admissions committee, as do the other factors considered. Your HS record will be ancient history once you have a college record.</p>
<p>I know we’ll get flak from a certain poster but this is useful information for students thinking about UW. Thanks for the link. Good for HS freshmen to think about courses to take to be competitive- minimum isn’t good enough.</p>
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<p>Still, if we assume the admits have ~normal dist. of GPA’s with avg = 3.7 and 25% between 3.5 and 3.7. That would make sd(x) = 0.2/0.67 =~0.3. A 3.2 would be about 1.7 sd’s below average, so a 3.2 is about the 5th percentile.</p>
<p>It’s probably a little better, because there’s no way it’s a normal distribution when there’s an upper limit on 4.0–there’s bound to be a negative skew making the mean a little less than 3.7. </p>
<p>I didn’t realize a 3.2 was in the bottom 8-10% of admits (you’re right, that’s not the same thing as the class that actually attends UW). </p>
<p>Entering my senior year of college here so I wasn’t concerned about my ability to fit in =); I’m just surprised most of my classmates did so well in hs.</p>
<p>justtotalk- UW made the right decision in admitting you since you are a successful student at UW. Your use of a stats analysis is based on too little data and erroneous assumptions. Too many variables. Surprised you didn’t know your HS gpa was low by current grading standards and competitiveness for UW admissions. There are many students who could do well but aren’t admitted due to lack of space. Someone saw something in your application that set you above some with higher grades. One detail doesn’t show the whole picture.</p>
<p>If you’re referring to me, wis75, you’ll be getting no flak. These are very solid numbers, although they don’t appear to have gone up much from prior years. And, of course, they’re not as high as the truly top tier state universities.</p>
<p>^yet your kids were rejected by the UW.</p>
<p>“they’re not as high as the truly top tier state universities”</p>
<p>Not as high as say, UVA with its average faculty and unranked departments. </p>
<p>Brilliant.</p>
<p>I didn’t say anything about U-Va. I did say UW’s numbers were solid. It’s clearly at or near the top of the second tier of state schools when it comes to undergraduate student quality.</p>
<p>How many and which public universities are considered tier one schools? Wisconsin, Illinois are not considered Tier one? They rank in the top 25 nationally? Tier one public schools must be a short list…</p>
<p>^Not sure. </p>
<p>To Nova it seems to mean rejecting the largest number of applicants so you can dish them to the other VA state schools, leaving yourself with the top tier of “undergraduate student quality” (picture the Thurston Howell the III voice) or those already programmed to succeed. Could be why having highly ranked depts. or high quality faculty at UVA isn’t a priority when you are successful selling a self-fulfilling program within a quasi LAC.</p>
<p>You sure don’t hear VA Commonwealth or VA Tech mentioned in the same breath as UIUC, UW Madison or Michigan.</p>
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<p>The very fact that there are so many variables (and most of them random–each admissions counselor has his or her own biases/preferences and these even out over such a large sample) makes my assumption of a normal distribution that much more likely.</p>
<p>Most of the assumptions I made are irrelevant. For instance, the distribution of GPA’s for anyone above the 3rd quartile (3.5) doesn’t affect my location percentile. The distribution would only matter if–of the 25% that got below a 3.5–there’s a much larger number of students that got below a 3.2 than would be predicted by a normal distribution.</p>
<p>Unless counselors get trigger happy when they see a 3.1 rather than a 3.4, or if for some reason the students who participate the most in EC’s get below a 3.2 rather that between a 3.2-3.5, than my result is valid. Keep in mind that recruited athletes aren’t a major part of the admitted student population. </p>
<p>The only really assumption that’s debatable is that the median is 3.7 and whether the mean is necessarily close to that median. But 50% are between 3.5 and 3.9 and the sample is HUGE. You’d need major gaps near the median to throw it off 3.7 (for example 24% getting a 3.9 and 26% getting a 3.5 would give you a median of 3.5). But why would such a large sample have gaping holes in its GPA distribution? Or, why would there be so many more students with a 3.9 than a 3.5? That doesn’t make sense–> like you said, there’s so many variables affecting a counselor’s decision beyond GPA. Obviously, the percentage of 3.9 students that get admits is higher, but I’d expect there to be less 3.9 students than 3.5 that apply to UW. </p>
<p>So the final question is whether median ~= mean… I guess I assumed that Madison doesn’t allow many sub-2.5 students into its school, so there’s not much room for a skewed distribution to bring down the mean. I guess it’s possible.</p>
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<p>My boarding school was a feeder for several different Ivies. I was the only graduate that went to UW (not many WI residents), so I didn’t have many comparable students around me. All I know is that a 3.5-3.9 students at my school typically ranged from lower ivy/other top 15–HPY. I assumed this was unusual, but I didn’t realize that 25% of UW had 3.9+; that’s incredible. I wonder if most of them declined “better” schools for a cheaper price tag.</p>
<p>I guess I never asked people in WI what their hs school GPA was. Didn’t really care.</p>
<p>“but I didn’t realize that 25% of UW had 3.9+; that’s incredible.”</p>
<p>Lots of schools in WI and MN have some grade inflation I think, but Wisconsin is also a very good deal for instaters who don’t have the means to move to the West Coast or Ivyland for school. Unlike some states with huge metro areas we don’t have nearly as many suburban kids with deep pockets that can net both the test scores and the funds to go out of state, so they go to UW.</p>
<p>Remember that (as wis75 has already pointed out) the numbers that UW has on its “Admissions Expectations” are for admitted students, not for enrolled students. No one’s saying that 25 percent of enrolled students at UW had over a 3.9 in high school; like with every other second tier school, a disproprotionate number of students on the high end of the admit range get better offers and go elsewhere. UW does enroll some very, very good students though; definitely at the top of the second tier (behind U-Va, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UMichigan, UNC-Chapel Hill, William and Mary, etc.).</p>
<p>Not sure what Virginia Tech or VCU have to do with anything but, since you brought them up, Virginia Tech is a very highly regarded school with admissions standards that are just as high as UW’s:</p>
<p>[What</a> We Look For: Freshmen | Undergraduate Admissions | Virginia Tech](<a href=“http://www.admiss.vt.edu/apply/freshman/what_do_we_look_for.php]What”>http://www.admiss.vt.edu/apply/freshman/what_do_we_look_for.php)</p>
<p>In fact, Tech – along with U-Va, William and Mary, James Madison and Mary Washington --is much more selective than any state college in Wisconsin other than Madison. Take Madison out of the equation and Wisconsin doesn’t have much left.</p>
<p>VCU may be less selective than these other Virginia schools, but it’s certainly on par with the UW branches and is way, way more diverse than any school you’ll find in Wisconsin, including Madison of course (where diversity is a joke). (Whites are only a plurality at VCU.) VCU also appears on one of barrons’ favorite lists: ARWU’s top 200 universities in the world.</p>
<p>UW versus U-Va? A fair fight, maybe. The UW branches against other Virginia state colleges? No contest.</p>
<p>Thanks for pointing out the error in my analysis nova.</p>
<p>Anyways, VT acceptance rate: 66.7%
UW-Eau Claire acceptance rate: 67%</p>
<p>Mary Washington acceptance rate: 74%
UW-La Crosse acceptance rate: 69%</p>
<p>William and Mary and James Madison are really the only two between Madison and the state schools admissions wise.</p>
<p>C’mon, you’re smart enough to know that admission RATES standing alone mean nothing. Even still . . .</p>
<p>You’ve identified the two most selective branch campuses in the UW system. Princeton Review’s selectivity rating for La Crosse is 81 and for Eau Claire it’s 80. There’s no other UW campus with a PR rating higher than the mid 70s. </p>
<p>In contrast, it’s 99 for U-Va, 98 for William and Mary, 96 for UW, 93 for Tech, 89 for JMU, and 85 for Mary Washington. This is because the average test scores and GPAs at all of these schools is higher than anything UW’s branches have to offer – including La Crosse or Eau Claire. You’re not going to find a knowledgeable college admissions counselor anywhere in the country who will tell you differently. </p>
<p>And, for what it’s worth, even VCU has a higher PR rating than any UW branch other than the two you just mentioned (and only accepts 59 percent of its applicants, which by your logic makes it more selective than even Eau Claire or La Crosse).</p>
<p>^^^Speaking of trivial assessments. C’mon nova. No one cares “how many” good colleges there are in a given state. All that matters is how many in state undergrads attend top universities relative to the entire state population.</p>
<p>UW-Madison has 30343 * 64% instate = 19,420 that attend a tier 1 university</p>
<p>UVA has 15464 * 72% instate = 11,134 that attend tier 1
W&M has 5836 * 65% instate = 3793 that attend tier 1</p>
<p>11134 + 3793 = 14927 students in VA that attend a tier 1 college</p>
<p>The population of VA is 7.88M; the population of WI is 5.65M. Let’s ignore potential differences in demographics because I don’t know how many retired/old people live in WI and VA respectively, but I somehow doubt that WI houses an abnormally large number of youth compared to VA.</p>
<p>Therefore, 14927/7.88M = 0.193% of VA population attend tier 1 colleges per 4 years.
Meanwhile, 19420/5.65M = 0.347% of WI population attend tier 1 colleges per 4 years</p>
<p>That’s 0.347/0.193 = 1.8x as many students (relative to population) getting a top notch education from the state of WI university system.</p>
<p>Any comparisons you make between schools in WI and schools in VA needs to adjust for trickle down effect. A large chunk of top WI high school students have already gone to UW Madison, while in VA a much smaller percent have gone to UVA or W&M, forcing them to attend schools like James Madison, etc.,</p>
<p>After all, if a state had one university ranked #1 in the country that had 500,000 undergrads, then they would have the best public university system in the country, agreed? The fact that it’s only 1 school is irrelevant. You wouldn’t say UC is better because it has 15 schools with a total of 500,000 undergrads in the top 50.</p>
<p>And when comparing the states, you wouldn’t go on to compare the second best school in that state with UCLA. That would be naive. You’d compare it with the 16th best college in California.</p>
<p>To give you an idea how much you’re lacking: 0.347% - 0.193% = 0.154% of VA population needs to be compared to UW before moving on to comparisons with UW-LaCrosse. </p>
<p>0.154% * 7.88M = 12,135 instate undergrads. That’s more than the size of James Madison’s instate class, so you need to remove them. (And this assumes that it’s fair to clump James Madison in the same caliber as UW).</p>
<p>"Not sure what Virginia Tech or VCU have to do with anything but, since you brought them up, Virginia Tech is a very highly regarded school with admissions standards that are just as high as UW’s:</p>
<p>What We Look For: Freshmen | Undergraduate Admissions | Virginia Tech</p>
<p>In fact, Tech – along with U-Va, William and Mary, James Madison and Mary Washington --is much more selective than any state college in Wisconsin other than Madison. Take Madison out of the equation and Wisconsin doesn’t have much left.</p>
<p>VCU may be less selective than these other Virginia schools, but it’s certainly on par with the UW branches and is way, way more diverse than any school you’ll find in Wisconsin, including Madison of course (where diversity is a joke). (Whites are only a plurality at VCU.) VCU also appears on one of barrons’ favorite lists: ARWU’s top 200 universities in the world."</p>
<p>Acceptance rates are great when bragging about your kids at the cocktail party or country club. Some schools are simply better and have higher acceptance rates. For years the U of Chicago had a higher acceptance rate than UVA - would anyone on planet earth think UVA better than the U of C?</p>
<p>In terms of diversity I think everyone wishes UW were more racially diverse and in fact improvement is occurring. Socially, UVA with its crushing clubby scene, is far less an interesting place than UW.</p>
<p>The real question is how over 20% of V. Com’s undergrads are African American and less than 9% at UVA. What kind of system is being run in Virginia?</p>