UW Madison vs Lawrence comp sci and music?

Midwestmomofboys
Sun, 01 Dec 2019 12:09:04 +0000

Very different experiences, obviously. One of my kids went to UW and the other kid seriously considered Lawrence, in part because of the appeal of being able to continue with his music without being in the Conservatory at Lawrence. Lawrence makes it feasible for non Con students to participate in ensembles, though placement is all based on audition and students in ensembles must continue with private lessons. In contrast, UW will offer the phenomenal resources of a major research university, but a student often has to be more self-directed to identify and pursue opportunities.

You can see the non-major options at UW by going to the college of music site and searching for “opportunities for non majors”

and info about CS class size by going to the university site and searching for “grade distribution report” and then choosing any recent semester, and scrolling through to the College of Letters and Science and then to the CS department – typically about 200 pages in to a 400+ page document. That document – published online after every semester, shows the courses offered in each department that semester, the number of students enrolled in each class, and the number of grades given at each range (A/AB/B etc).

My kid is a recent UW grad, and had a bunch of CS major friends – they had no trouble getting into classes.

Both wonderful choices, for very different reasons.