It’s actually a little deceiving. Getting into the liberal arts college is fairly easy. College of Science and Engineering is the most difficult to get into, then Carlson School of Management and College of Biological Sciences is next in line for difficulty. The CLA has a Chemistry major, though reports are pretty common for being able to transfer into CSE if you have a good gpa freshman year. Especially for a non-engineering major.
Because if he were to get into UW Madison, I think he would highly consider it. He considers UMN his top choice because he feels he’ll be able to at least get into CLA. He sees Madison as a ‘reach’ but views it as a better school academically, which is what he’d prefer. We haven’t toured Madison yet, but plan to this fall. Madison highly values strong essays and LORs, but this will also be the first year of the Wisconsin Promise, or whatever it’s called, where Madison will be auto-admitting the top 5% of all Wisconsin high school’s seniors (if they apply by Nov 1). Due to this, we’re anticipating a lot more deferrals for other Wisconsin residents; more than normal at least.