Omg. Me too! I should have done journalism or history. Want to go to law school probably. Or sports marketing. Maybe should have just gone undecided. Who knows. Where else is your son in? I’m in at Kelley, Leeds Boulder, UF, FSU, Gies, Haslam at Tennessee, U Miami and OSU Fisher Honors. So I have really good choices and I’m grateful. But I wanted to go to school with my sister. She loves Wisco.
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Overlaps with you at IU (waiting on a petition to Kelley—hit the scores and GPA, but went to 2 high schools; assumed the petition was a formality, but now nervous about THAT)
And U Miami.
Also in at Pitt, U Maryland Honors and Bucknell.
Today, would guess he’d opt for U Miami, even though it makes me nervous.
Where are you leaning? And agree on the majors. Ironic, since my son has talked about law school a lot (but as a lawyer, I’ve actually argued against it—so it’s my fault).
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My dad is a lawyer too! But owns a business. Which is why I was doing biz before law school lol. I love U Miami but it’s so expensive. Although I did get a really nice merit scholarship. But I don’t like the off campus living options after freshman year. I think I want a more traditional
College experience. I went to a basketball game at admitted students day and there were no students there. And I heard no one really goes to football games and I want on campus tailgating etc and there are no sorority houses. But biz school is great and I love campus. But I think i will prob
Go to OSU business or UF over U Miami. Indiana felt like there wasn’t enough to do
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Did you guys go to a u Miami admit day? I bet he gets into Kelley
Waitlisted. Sigh. Have good options Kelley, OSU, FSU, Boulder, but disappointed.
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Agree on the U Miami experience. Talked to an alum who told me most of the social scene is tied to the clubs on south beach—which doesn’t seem like a traditional college experience to me. And you’re right, the housing situation is a huge concern.
We might go to the admitted student weekend in mid-April. I know the football stadium isn’t on campus, it’s a hike to get there. Surprised to hear no students at the basketball game. That’s disappointing.
The campus experience is something he definitely wants—hence the draw to Madison.
My niece went to UF and really enjoyed it. And it’s a great school. She did mention it took her till senior year to qualify for student football tickets—which always seemed crazy to me. But I think Gainesville is closer to the college-town experience.
Have you spent time at OSU? I’ve always gotten more of an urban vibe—as opposed to college town—there because Columbus is so big. But great school spirit, for sure.
The biggest thing for my son—and I would guess for you—is go where you’re excited to go. You want to get to campus and just feel like it’s 100% where you want to be.
March Madness became March Sadness for us last night.
S24 waitlisted after EA deferral. Just like Pilate, we’re really disappointed. It was his first choice, too.
Credentials for comparison:
Crunchy, non-GPA school, but ranked second in his class
No test scores submitted
10-12 APs
Played soccer and basketball
Captain of soccer team
President of investment club and charitable club that raises money for a school in Madagascar
Member of several other clubs
Applied to Business
OOS
We are confused and sad on several fronts. He was accepted EA at four schools that, last year, were significantly harder to get into than UW-Madison was last year. Also, like you, wiparent1, a friend of his was accepted EA - her credentials were not nearly as good and she was not accepted at other schools to which my son was accepted and she was not. She applied to L&S; like you, big10inDC, we had no idea that prospective major would move the needle like this. (And my son is wavering on the business thing, making this harder to take.)
I hear you, too, midwestcollegegirl - with your credentials, what else could you have done??? You are awesome.
Pilate, Issaquah_Coug98, NurseNat, Hopeful_mom_2024, collegemeyhem, I feel for you and your kids. With those credentials . . . how?
As a parent hurting for his son, I think UW-Madison really screwed up by not admitting a high-energy, smart boy like my son, and I feel the same for all of your children with their AMAZING credentials. (I probably will be rooting for James Madison over the Badgers today - I am a little bitter this morning.)
I know that our children will have great experiences elsewhere (if the waitlist does not come through - and I was waitlisted at my alma mater before being accepted in late June a million years ago, so waitlists do work out sometimes). I am sad that my son will not have the chance to spend four years with your wonderful children.
Congratulations to those who were accepted. The very best of luck to all of our children.
Thanks again to you, Pilate, for opening and running the list. And thanks to all of you for your candor, camaraderie, and encouragement.
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Thanks @bzzf. I’m sorry to hear that your son was also waitlisted. As for your take on the UW-Madison process, I agree with everything you said.
I appreciate that Wisconsin provided the odds for the waitlist which are significantly better than the 1% chance typically offered by Michigan. My son has accepted the waitlist offer (Wisconsin is still his favorite), but we told him he needs to evaluate his options this week and accept an offer elsewhere.
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What’s the timing on the waitlist? July?
Chiming in here. My son also deferred then waitlisted. Also business. He’s in at Leeds (Boulder) but doesn’t want to go there. He’s also in at FSU, U of Iowa, U of MN (Carlson) Kelley at IU. Kelley is the top contender currently. We went to DA day and it was very impressive. WI was his #1. So bummed. Tough stuff. He’ll commit to another school.
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Wisconsin didn’t say, but based on past years they (and most colleges) start offering spots to waitlist students a few days after decision day (May 15th for UW this year). That’s when they will know if they have open spots to fill.
It’s usually a rolling process (so it could go as late as July) and students will have only a few days to accept the offer of admission before it’s offered to someone else.
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S24 accepted after being deferred. 3.6 UW in IB Diploma, t/o. His ECs were on par with others but had 1-2 that I would say were very unique. That, and his essay, put him over the top I believe. I had doubts the big schools with 50-100k applications really looked far beyond stats but now I believe it.
For those waitlisted or denied, it looks you have great options. UF, FSU, Miami & IU Kelley are highly thought of around here (Georgia and the SE). UTK is drawing record applications. Miami has its own vibe but I know the other 4 offer an excellent and traditional college experience. And very difficult to get accepted to any of those so that alone is quite an accomplishment.
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My son luckily got in last night it’s strange we are still waitlisted at UTK.
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Son got it. Yay.
4.0
Two sport varsity athlete
Decent ECs
TO
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Thank you bzzf. UW-Madison is a tough school to get accepted to, especially for an OOS student like my DS24. We now know that a lot of it depends on what specific major you want, and unfortunately his was CS so VERY competitive to get into. He did accept the Waitlist, so we’ll see what happens…
Congrats to those who got in and good luck to those students who were Waitlisted or Rejected, you still have the potential to do great things wherever that may be!!!
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Sorry to read so great candidates got Waitlisted. Concerning business. I read in Poets and Quants an interview with the Dean and he said they received 11 000 applications for 650 direct admitted spots. So it has got very difficult to get in.
My son was admitted EA and I guess he was very lucky.
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I am on the email list for school counselors with UW Madison and got email from admissions yesterday. They recieved over 65,000 applications this year. In 2021, they recieved 53,000 and that was up 17% from the previous year. They also accidently had a WAY too large class a couple years ago (around 8600, when shooting for more like 8000).
Maybe that helps lend perspective on this crazy admissions landscape. I am sorry to everyone who is disappointed! I guess we will see if and how the waitlist is used this year. I’m not surprised they admitted conservatively because their yield has snuck up on them.
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My kid FINALLY checked, and he was waitlisted. But for us, that is AMAZING news. More waiting is definitely awful, but we were surprised he got the deferral to begin with, and seeing the stats off those who were accepted/rejected this year, very surprised he got the waitlist option.
(Just curious: Did all of you waitlisteds also get the invitation to the Connections program?)
(On another note: wonder if they decided to play with us and waitlist those of us who were over-checking portal hints LOL)
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S24 is OOS, so no Connections program offer.
I was looking over Wisconsin’s statement about the percent admitted off the waitlist:
“Although admission from the wait list varies greatly from year to year, over the last three years an average of 28.7% of students on the wait list have been offered admission. We encourage you to join the wait list if you remain interested in admission to UW-Madison.”
What made me curious is that Wisconsin reported only 11 students admitted off the waitlist in Fall 2022. So I did some digging into the data and what follows is a combination of hard numbers + some educated speculation (because Fall 2023 data has not been released) + some basic math.
Short version: For two of the last three years, Wisconsin has admitted only 0.3% of students off the waitlist. In order for their three year average to be 28.7%, last year’s admit rate had to be considerably higher.
The numbers is green are pure guesswork based on prior years. The numbers is red are based on calculations that combine confirmed numbers + the guesswork numbers. The numbers for Fall 2023 seem very high, but Fall 2020 also had a lot of students admitted off the waitlist.
CAVEATS: All of these available offers might have been in Arts & Sciences. Maybe zero were in the colleges of Business or Engineering. Also, numbers admitted off the waitlist does not equal numbers enrolled. Wisconsin may have needed to offer admission to 5 or more students on the waitlist for every student who chose to enroll.
I contacted Wisconsin’s admissions office to ask about these numbers. Their counselor was really nice and very helpful, but he couldn’t answer my specific question about the waitlist. This makes sense because they are pretty explicit on their website about not giving information about waitlist odds.
My final point is that all these data tell us VERY LITTLE about the waitlist situation for this year. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this year will be like last year. Maybe not.
My son will be accepting an offer of admission at a different university over the next few days. If he gets an offer from Wisconsin, he will probably take it, but right now we are assuming that Wisconsin will not be his college home.
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