Getting in: The not-so-secret admissions process

Myth: Applicants from outside Wisconsin are taking up spots that could go to state residents.

Maybe, but it’s a simplistic answer to a complicated question. UW-Madison seeks to enroll students from outside Wisconsin for three main reasons: one, it creates a diverse student body that enriches the college experience; two, it brings bright young people to Wisconsin, and oftentimes, they stick around and make meaningful contributions to the state; and three, non-residents pay higher tuition rates that help defray the costs for in-state students. (At press time, it was estimated that in-state students would pay $7,188 in tuition for 2007-08, about half the actual cost of education at UW-Madison. Non-residents would pay $21,438.)

Of the 5,643 students who enrolled as freshmen in fall 2006, 1,634, or 29 percent, were non-residents.

Before each new admissions cycle, UW-Madison’s leaders weigh those factors and make a strategic decision about how many out-of-state students to enroll. A Board of Regents policy limits the university to having no more than 25 percent of its undergraduate enrollment come from out of state (except for Minnesota students, who are counted as residents under a reciprocity agreement between the two states), but in recent years, UW-Madison has been a couple of ticks below that cap. As of fall 2006, 22.8 percent of undergraduates were classified as non-residents; 66.7 percent were Wisconsin residents, and 10.6 percent hailed from Minnesota. However, because out-of-state students typically graduate more quickly than in-state students, the percentage of non-residents in the freshman class is sometimes higher. Of the 5,643 students who enrolled as freshmen in fall 2006, 1,634, or 29 percent, were non-residents.

Whether those students are getting in at the expense of more-deserving Wisconsin residents is debatable. On one hand, students from out of state don’t appear to have some of the academic credentials of their in-state peers. Among new freshmen in 2007, Wisconsin students came in with better average high-school GPAs (3.79 to 3.53) and higher average class ranks (90.9 to 86.2) than non-residents, although lower average ACT scores (27.9 to 28.2). On the other hand, such comparisons can be misleading. More than half of out-of-state students attended high schools that do not compute class rank, for instance, and grading standards vary widely from school to school. The fact that out-of-state students graduate more quickly suggests that they are competitive with in-state students, says Farrell.

“There’s no benefit to us to admit out-of-state students who are not every bit as well qualified as in-state students, or conversely,” he says. “We want to admit excellent students from both groups, because our faculty count on that kind of preparation. We can’t afford to have different standards and expect that to be accommodated in the way we teach our courses.”

It’s also not the case that UW- Madison has suddenly become inaccessible to Wisconsin students. In 1987, the university enrolled about 5.5 percent of the state’s high school graduating class, and that number has wandered little during the past two decades: the most recent figure, for the class of 2007, was 5.1 percent.

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