I don’t know which school or major the student applied to. I’m kind of afraid to ask her mom, who was seething and ready to send scathing messages to state legislators when she told me.
GPA is unweighted.
The student was admitted to the University of Minnesota, which has reciprocity with Wisconsin public universities.
Well, part of the issue is that a safety needs to also be financially viable. Our two local state schools are affordable but hover around 30 percent acceptance rate. Outside of reasonable driving distance there are plenty of admissions safe options but the housing can be twice the tuition in our state. Even if you qualify for a tuition grant, coming up with the 15+ for housing and travel can be prohibitive. If you don’t qualify for the grant, you are looking at 22-30k for out of area. When I hear local kids getting shut out, it’s because they didn’t get into the local schools and can’t afford to go away. They really didn’t have a non CC safety.
If Madison uses the CA, it’s holistic. Who knows what that kid’s app was like? Why assume she was WL for some OOS kid?
Could UW be trying to protect yield? Maybe they figured the kid also would be getting into a Northwestern, UChicago, Ivy, Wash U, etc.
I’m a big supporter of the UW system. It does face budgetary constraints, so I think that trying to admit more out-of-state students is understandable. Whether this specific student was affected by that policy is unknowable.
I would not consider Madison or Ann Arbor as safeties anymore for instate kids. March yes but safety no.
@rosered55: Hmm. The major/school may matter.
To the south, UIUC has an overall admit rate above 50% but CS and some engineering majors are safeties for no one.
UIUC CS has an admit rate in the teens now, I believe.
I agree that the major or school might matter. I don’t think the student is interested in engineering, which I know is harder to get into. Possibly business, but I don’t know if that’s a freshman-admit school.
@rosered55 If the student did not take a rigorous academic course load with honors and APs, did a poor job on his or her essay, had lukewarm letter of recommendations, or if there was something else in the application that caused concern, that could be a more plausible reason for why the student was not accepted in-state. Granted, top state flagships like Wisconsin-Madison are not true safeties for anybody, but still, with stats in the top 25% there must be some concern with the student’s application to be put on the waitlist. I don’t know the schools policy on Early Action (EA) vs. Regular Decision but whenever EA is offered for a school considered to be a safety, students should take advantage of that and apply EA. Less spots are available in the class for those that apply RD and this student may have hurt her chances by not applying EA. This is a lesson learned for all student who want to increase chances at any school, especially in this age of competitive admissions—apply EA if offered!
I think there are just a lot of parents and students who do not understand what a true safety is. If you check out Ameican University RD thread, you find very high stats kids complaining about how they were waitlisted or rejected from their safety -AU. It has a 23% acceptance rate for RD - it’s not a safety under RD. It can be a safety if you apply ED as they accept 85%. I think there is this myopic view of where exactly high stats students stand in relation to the nationwide numbers of students who are graduating from high school and competing for admissions. “But I’m the best at my school - so I should get admitted.” Well, there are close to 40,000 private and public high school in the USA alone. So you are competing not with the best at your school but at 40,000 schools across the country.
We can speculate forever about why any particular student was rejected, but it still isn’t evidence of the idea that kids are getting shut out of safeties, at least not by my definition of safety. Madison does not have a greater than 60% admit rate. That makes it a match, not a safety.
@turtletime the problem of kids haven’t no affordable options is enormous in this country. Its another topic altogether.
I think that the not applying early hurt the student.
I have another friend whose son is a junior in high school. Mom (my friend) is concerned about his ACT (29); dad thinks son is a slam-dunk (or the soccer-equivalent term) for UW-Madison. I’m trying to give the mom helpful information without alarming her. I have told her about CC!
And I’m pretty certain it’s still tougher to get in to UW-Madison as OOS than as a WI resident.
And yes, a holistic school will consider everything, including aspects most people on the outside do not see.
I do not know a single student that did not get in to their safeties and those safeties were absolutely not auto admit.
My D applied to an impacted major and got accepted to all her safeties and got merit as well (not auto). Her friends that applied to the same major also all of them with no exception got into their safeties. I participate in the sub-forum of this major here in CC and have exchanged a lot of private messages with other families before and after admissions and again they all got in to their safeties.
I am not knowledgeable about California. Maybe that is true there? I don’t know.
BTW, @rosered55, UW-Madison does have guaranteed transfer agreements with the UW Colleges (the 2Y CC’s in the UW system), for what it’s worth.
Was UW-Madison not among that girl’s top choices?
If her essays are lackluster, that would matter for holistic admissions.
UW-Madison is her top choice.
I think that a lot of people just don’t realize how much the college application and admission process has changed. I think that when I went to college (I started in 1979), students who graduated in the top 50% of their Wisconsin high school class were guaranteed admission to UW-Madison. When my kids went to college (one started in 2009, the other in 2011), I was well aware that it was much more competitive, but many folks aren’t.
@am9799 That is what I’m seeing as well, at least in my town. I haven’t seen anyone get rejected from an actual safety.
Taking out the financial piece (we were chasing merit) my D was admitted to all her safeties, I think 6 of them, right around the 50%-60% acceptance rate, but that was five years ago. When I look at that list of schools today, I still think she’d get into every one of them and many are schools suggested here on CC as safeties (Simmons, St. Michaels, Ithaca…)
@rosered55, interesting. She should have sent off during EA, then.
I wonder if there is a big difference in admit rate between EA and RD for UW-Madison.
Sh could have tried to express interest while on the WL.
If it’s a TRUE safety, your kid will get admitted.
The issue is…some folks apply to schools that are NOT “true safety” schools.