You may recall a previous thread concerning my son. To refresh your memory, he is a rising senior in Fort Lauderdale with Hispanic heritage. My S took your advice and e-mailed Mr Carlos Reyes. We did not get a reply, so, I decided to give him a call. Unfortunately, his voice mail message explained that he is on an extended leave of absence.
My son is truly interested in UW. So interested that we will be visiting Madison for a tour the 29th of this month. We are driving up to Atlanta to visit Emory (at my insistence) on Monday, and, I believe that we are scheduled for a generic tour UW's campus Wednesday at noon. My son tried to contact the English department, but didn't get far. We need to make the most of this visit. It is not likely that I can afford another trip to Madison before a college decision is made.
I spoke to some one at the admissions office today (I can't recall his name) and he suggested that we simply walk into the admissions office and ask to speak to some one. He even mentioned that Mr Reyes sometimes drops by the office and might be there. However, he admitted that he could not assure me that Mr Reyes would be there. I feel a little uneasy about this. I would prefer to have an appointment with some one.
My question is this: can you give me some advice of how to make the most of our visit? I want my son to get a good fix on the curriculum at UW. He wants a strong LA education and plans to study Film in graduate school. It would be great to talk to some one that has intimate knowledge of the Liberal Arts school. Some one that might suggest a specific school within the U. And , perhaps offer advice to help him improve his chances of acceptance.
I am asking for a lot, but if you have any information for me, I would be very grateful.
If you can't get hold of her contact Roxanne and tell her the alumni admissions rep in Seattle gave you her name. She handles the west coast but also minority recruitment. She's very nice. Now might be the time they take their vacations etc after the big spring rush and before fall starts.
If you have time, could you post a visit report on the other part of this site for campus visits? Always good to see a real outsider's impressions--the good and even the bad. Thanks.
Just my thoughts on a LA education at UW. My daughter is an incoming freshman this year, but not a minority and we do live close by (1 hour).
She applied to 13 schools, 10 of them some of the top LAC's in the midwest if not the nation. Not sure if you are familiar with schools like Carlton, St. Olaf, Beloit, Lawrence, etc.... She too wants a LA education to a large extent, thus her interest in the smaller LAC's (under 3000 students). She was admitted to 11 of her 13 schools with a several giving a good enough FA package that they would have been quite a bit less costly than UW after scholarships.
When she first visited Madison it seemed huge to her. It was a 92 degree day with a lot of walking, but still enjoyable. In between visiting the smaller LAC's we went back for several visits to UW, and each time it seemed smaller, in a GOOD way to her. We read up on class sizes, had some GREAT student tour guides that calmed a lot of fears about the size issue.
She also looked into things to give her a little more of what in my mind is a LA education. Things like; The FIG's (First Year Interest Groups), the Residential Learning Communities in some dorms, the ILS (Intergrated Liberal Studies) Curriculum, etc... In the area of English, Creative Writing in particular, we learned that they have a very good staff, right up there with some of the highest end small LAC's. It just seems to get overshadowed by all the tech, business, bio type news.
I believe her thoughts in the end were that she could gets just as good LA education at UW as the smaller LAC's, AND have the added benefit of Madison as a college and cultural town, large music scene (one of her passions), the lakes, TONS of involvement opportunities, etc.....
I guess a summary would be that if you want a good LA track here, it is absolutely doable, but you might need to do some digging.
Thank you DJD. The more we look into UW, the more it becomes clear that it will be my son's first choice. He is mostly interested in the Creative Writing program but that is still up in the air.
What is the ILS major? I have seen it mentioned before, but I am not sure what it means.
I got the ILS Certificate the late 1980's. The program is a way to focus your first 2 or 3 years with a group of interdisciplinary and cohesive classes. It's essentially a great books program at a large University. Lots of the literature of Western Civilization, but with often contemporary context. The Professor's who teach in the programs are folks who love to teach and the Graduate students were top notch. Even if you are in the sciences ILS is a way to meet breadth requirements in a structured manner. In fact the University leverages its strengh in the sciences with some great Science faculty teaching in the program. A well educated person certainly needs a solid understanding of the scientific world! To this day I am interested in a broad range of literature and ideas due to ILS. Definately made this Badger a life long learner.
