Admitted, in state, Physics, 3.97 UW, 11AP, 55 credits DE, Bi/Tri-lingual. NASA internship, 6 yr mentee w/STEM Phd, work, 3 varsity sports, 2 as captain, state qualifier, National Merit Commended, camp counselor, president 2 clubs. Big decisions ahead choosing between UW and several public ivies!
The first two years is when freshness and excitement come from a college experience, is not it? After that, routine and job pressure take over.
College AOs are human, unpredictable.
Fair enough- there are certainly trade-offs, and it wouldnât be a path for everyone. You can get in w/ in a year if you plan it right. I have a senior and junior at UW now, and they still seem to be having a blast!
Those working in admission departments are certainly human. I think thereâs also a reasonable discussion about the university goals and transparency. Not only a UW issue of course.
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Unfortunately for us the âhumanâ and âunpredictableâ aspect of admissions impacted only at our in-state UW and none of the other 14 OOS/private schools, most of whichâat least on paperâare much more selective.
One possibility that I donât rule out is that perhaps the WA state students are a lot more competitive on average, and hence a 50% acceptance rate may look easy, but it isnât.
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In-state and out-of-state are often completely separate buckets for many competitive universities, so itâs a possibility. But there really seems to be much more sculpting, shall we say, with an in-state freshmen class to meet university goals and objectives.
The admittance of out-of-state students may have somewhat different objectives, and seems more tightly aligned with a studentâs academics/achievements. A university would also have incentive to lean towards the families that are more likely to be willing/able to pay that higher out-of-state tuition. Of course, this wouldnât be a stated objective though.
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As I recall your resume with SAT and without paint a different applicant profile
Could well be the case. Not the best of cumulative UW GPA at 3.75 due to one bad semester, but she got admitted to the other two test blind schools she applied: Cal Poly SLO and SDSU (honors), with some merit too. May be they valued the rigor of IB diploma more than UW?
In the overall purpose here of how does someone get admitted or denied from UW GPA is going to be the tippy top. For an applicant with a 3.75 UW you are going to be behind the curve a bit on what UW at least states they look for. Which only furthers high school crazy about I need all As or cannot have a underachieving semester - but thatâs a different discussion.
However, I think UW is pretty transparent overall. UW for all I can tell values âdiversity.â It talks in admission presentations like it did when it was pre-common app a few years ago focusing on 5 ECs of long-term quality and one of which includes a job and/or significant community service, and GPA with high rigor within the context of the high school. I think its accurate to say UW does not value IB any more or less than any other high school transcript. So a 3.75 in a high achieving high school IB probably means relatively the same as a 3.75 in a low achieving non IB high school.
Diversity also seems to mean state-wide diversity as well as candidate diversity so the high school and how many apply to UW probably matters - if you go to Skyline or Inglemoor or Issaquah itâs probably tougher to get in than from Yakima Davis because you might have 300 applicants from a class. I think this goes to the in-state is more competitive, I doubt it is overall, but in your specific high school it might be.
Candidate diversity would mean there are a lot of 4.0 moderate rigor valedictorian student council applicants and the more mainstream you are overall - the less candidate diversity you present and the greater need to have that in your essay/statements. UW certainly has admission priority on first-gen and historically under represented minority groups - but that does not mean people meeting these groups would not be admitted regardless.
Weâve known plenty of people admitted to their âsecond choiceâ major this year so they do look at that. It would be logical however that UW looks at your transcript and says not sure they are going to be a Bio major without taking AP Bio. Bio 180-220 series is hard at UW. Or can I be an Econ/Biz major with no Calc AB. The worst thing for UW is admitting kids who wonât be successful in what they want to do. There also seemed to be some admission blowback this year to people who did put random majors and were not admitted.
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I appreciate the thoughtful discussion on all of this. Itâs an important issue, and some great points. I believe that going to what some would consider a âcompetitiveâ local high school now, may actually make it more challenging to get into UW. Different than a decade ago I suspect.
Iâve just seen too many specific examples that point to significant issues with the system. The numbers seem to support this too. Itâs difficult to give the admission department the benefit of the doubt anymore.
These are essentially $120k in-state scholarships being handed out - in what often feels like secrecy, with a few strategic leaks. I think itâs time for much more disclosure and transparency in the whole process.
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Makes sense.
Iâd like to conclude by saying this: we were quite realistic to not overshoot expectations when preparing our college list. Did not apply to any T20s (considering lower stats) and UCs (not interested).
Considered schools like UIUC, Cal Poly, Villanova as reaches given lower acceptance rates and our âmidâ stats.
Took IB Math AA HL (to give an idea of rigor) and scored A grade where majority of students either take an SL, and/or struggle to score a B at her school.
Accepted list included schools which are test required/optional/blind.
Expecting admit to our state flagship wasnât a ridiculous expectation for a kid whoâs worked hard and has a reasonably strong application.
This was our first time going through the admissions process, so we were/are learning, and hence prone to miscalculating chances, but the expectations were accentuated after admits from all other reaches and targets.
We know better now.
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When you write about secrecy - I actually think you can get a pretty solid idea of this from the getuwmajor.com work. It would be surprising the general university is significantly different from the individual colleges just more applicable to the general university. Quality over quantity; evidence the applicant can communicate their goals; evidence they will thrive. Foster particularly focusing on first gen. I find that site to be a very valuable outline of what UW is looking for.
I think a fair point to make with UW applicants is that the common app tends to push quantity and answering one of the specific 7 essay prompts. And a lot of of what UW is saying in admissions and the various FOIA efforts is not that. We were lucky with our oldest to be admitted but if I had to do it over again Iâd focus more on what UW is saying in telling our story of why thrive and connect to University diversity versus listing stats and ECs.
The competitive local high schools might be as recent as a 3-4 year shift. Itâs a recent thing where the admissions is promoting look at our diversity over all these high schools - we have 70 admits from X and Y and Z. I think you have rightly stated look what UW promotes for what they value.
Accepted - OOS, Political Science major, unweighted GPA @3.7; 7 AP classes taken.
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Agreed, but it sounds a bit patronizing and insensitive when generalized, especially for kids with strong applications who arenât admitted.
Definitely patronizing and insensitive. I donât think thereâs any doubt there are more strong applications than spots at UW. So thereâs going to be a variety of reasons for rejection that UW is making for us all from their opinion. One of which is going to be UW doesnât believe someone from their high school transcript matches what UW believes will be successful. There will be many others - almost every application is a strong one. While it would be great to âknowâ I donât think this is secrecy. @dawgdad22 has also correctly noted that UW views CC to UW as a very normal path so itâs also saying go that route taking pre-reqs. The idea of 4 year at one campus in Seattle is not UWâs believed only route. For UW thatâs a rejection to CC or UWB not a donât come to UW. It feels for us as applicants as a hurtful sting in the 4 year at one college mindset.
Itâs also the top of the apps projected for the next 20 years - the UW in-state apps are up exactly the number projected of seniors over last year - 6%. UW like everywhere else will be facing a much different process soon.
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I donât disagree with anything youâre saying, youâre just missing my point; or Iâm failing to put it across. Thank you.
âholistic lensâ âdisadvantaged backgroundâ âsexual orientationâ âequityâ âsystemic racismâ âsocietal inequitiesâ etc. etc. Pretty clear what they are attempting to do. Hint- it isnât your GPA or academic rigor. Thanks for sharing and thanks for FOIA.
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Yes, Iâve reviewed that getuwmajor site before and itâs quite enlightening as noted above. I suspect there may be differing views on it. Wish it didnât require a freedom of information act request to get straight answers from universities.
Sometimes we have to agree to disagree on some of this I understand, but I do appreciate the discussion and feel that itâs very important to many families.
For better or worse, it does seem like many colleges will be âencouragedâ to be more forthcoming in the years ahead. Feels like one of those âregulate yourself, or youâll be regulatedâ moments. And likely more of a sledgehammer approach than a scalpel.
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If a first time applicant cannot figure out whatâs important to a school, and what they look for in applications to make their decisions by going through their admissions site, then Iâm not sure Iâd call them âtransparent.â
It shouldnât require detective work and years of experience sending multiple kids to that school to prepare a strong application which the school will see as a âfit.â
Almost every applicant knows their application strength and realistically evaluates their chances based on the available information.
Itâs neither than UW is the most competitive school, nor that other public schools donât have similar institutional priorities.
As I said before we have been conservative in our expectations, and didnt expect quite a few acceptances we got, but still quite stunned at UW rejection.
If I had a second child going to college, I now know what to expect with UW, but it doesnât have to be so difficult for first timers to figure things out.
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