University of Wisconsin Deferred Early Action 2024

Colleges & Universities University of Wisconsin
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Creating a new thread for those of us who were deferred during Early Action or have children who were deferred.

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Has everyone found the part of the application portal to submit midterm grades and 3,000 character statement? My son is working on his statement and he had his school counselor submit midterm grades to all of his colleges.

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Hello! Thanks for starting the deferred group! ; ) If you don’t mind my asking, where are you are you seeing a “3000-word statement” request?

I do see this: "Please do not send any additional documents unless specifically requested, as we are unable to accept them and they will not impact your decision.

When self-reporting your grades, you will have the opportunity to share any additional information at that time. "

Is that where you found a request for a 3000-word statement? That seems crazy to me - that’s like 6 pages??

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This is the first that I have heard of it. I asked my son to follow up but, probably as a result of hurt feelings, he has not exactly charged ahead here.

I imagine there is a link in the portal or somewhere else? Can you direct me where to look (or have my son look)?

(My son would not even show me his deferral letter - he was too disappointed and I did not want to push . . . but he has had a few days - it is time to pick himself up.)

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Thanks again for opening the thread, Pilate. Parents of disappointed teens now have a source for information - and a support group.

Would it be helpful for this group to include their child’s statistics so that we can read only other deferred students’ qualifications without having to parse around others?

In case that seems like a good idea . . .

OOS S24
Non-GPA high school - second in his class
Did not submit test scores
8-10 AP classes (depending on how one counts)
Two varsity sports
Leader of multiple EC/charitable groups; member of others
Applied for College of Business (and probably wishes he had not - another student from his school whose qualifications were not as good was admitted to Arts & Sciences, and he is taking it hard)

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My son found the submission link almost by accident. Here are the steps:

  1. Enter the Student Center admissions portal
  2. Select the Admissions tile
  3. Select Application Status
  4. Select “Mid-year Grades”

You can self-report your mid-term grades and below that is a narrow text box that allows you to provide an update of up to 3,000 characters. It only allows one submission. No edits after that submission.

Honestly, the whole thing reminded me of that passage from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

But the plans were on display
”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’

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I can report the tables from the other thread in case that’s helpful. Here’s my kid:

S24 OOS
Engineering
3.8 UW GPA
33 ACT
13 APs
Good ECs

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I know for a fact that my son never got as far as clicking on the mid-year grades. Because he attends a crunchy, non-GPA school, his school submits a lengthy narrative instead of a transcript. He needs to meet with the college counselor to prepare an addendum - that will probably use up a lot of the 3000-word allotment.

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Sorry, my son misspoke. He just confirmed 3,000 CHARACTERS, not words. I just updated my original post. :flushed:

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S24 OOS-WA
College of Letters and Science (CS)
3.82 UW GPA
1460 SAT
9 AP’s
Varsity Baseball and Golf, DECA, Youth Group, part-time job, etc


Here’s a copy of the deferral letter:

2024 Wisconsin EA Deferral
2024 Wisconsin EA Deferral1200×777 351 KB

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Deleted

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We didn’t get deferred but we applied as regular decision . Do they look at deferred applications before regular applications. It’s a long shot for my daughter but hopeful. Wants to major in zoology and looks like Madison is good for that.

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I don’t know any specifics for Wisconsin admissions, but people who know more than I do say that Early Action deferrals are moved into the Regular Decision pool and all are considered equally. It’s possible that some universities see Early Action as “demonstrated interest”, but most large public universities claim they don’t look at demonstrated interest as a factor.

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This is a table from the Early Action thread (I added lowest UW GPA and a TO breakdown), but I post it here for your reference. This is a summation of self-reported metrics from students on College Confidential who applied Early Action to Wisconsin. It does NOT represent the overall Wisconsin pool, so take from it what you will.

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Additionally, here are some high level stats from Wisconsin’s Common Data Set data for the entry class of Fall 2022 (most current available). These data tell us who was accepted and enrolled two years ago:

  • 83% of enrolled students had an UW GPA of 3.75 or higher. Average was 3.88
  • 66% had an SAT score of 1400 or higher
  • 62% had an ACT score of 30 or higher

We don’t have that breakdown by in-state vs. out of state (OOS), but it’s safe to assume that OOS students need higher metrics to be admitted.

Wisconsin looks at more than just test scores and GPA, but hopefully this information is useful for applicants. For test-optional students (TO), it looks like Wisconsin puts a lot more emphasis on high UW GPA (which makes sense).

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Since they are EA, they presumably would’ve been looked at before RD in order to be deferred, unless it’s just a straight cut based on GPA, TO and/or ACT/SAT scores, but I would think that they are now equally compared and measured to the RD applicants to fill the remaining spots.

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Anyone know if they care more about uw GPA or w GPA? The moderator on the Michigan site says Michigan seems to focus more on uw.

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Almost all colleges these days are looking at a combination of rigor + unweighted GPA. There’s too much variation in how high schools weight classes to take weighted GPA at face value. Someone in the Wisconsin EA thread mention that Wisconsin, like Michigan, recalculates a student’s GPA. I don’t know the specifics

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I get so confused on how some of these weighted GPA numbers. I thought it was 1.0 for AP/IB and 0.5 for Honors/Advanced. Plus some schools are on a 4.0 scale, others on 5.0, some don’t have a GPA, some rank, some don’t, etc


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There is no standard formula for weighted GPA. In my state it varies pretty widely from school to school. For example, my son’s high school only weights AP classes. He gets a .50 GPA bump for taking the AP class and an additional .50 GPA bump if he takes the AP exam. A high school 5 miles away automatically give 1.0 GPA for AP regardless of whether you take the exam and 1.0 for Honors and dual enrollment classes.

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