Wisconsin’s Newest Bill Impacting Upcoming Classes Statewide: Top 5% Guaranteed Admission at UW-Madison and Top 10% Guaranteed at All WI Schools
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Bella Gruber
For many high-flying seniors across Wisconsin, the entire college application process is extremely time-consuming and stress-inducing—crafting the perfect essay, submitting letters of recommendation, and creating a well-rounded profile of your character. Numerous aspiring students in Wisconsin dream of attending UW-Madison but are aware of its competitiveness.
This upcoming school year, Madison’s admissions process for students in Wisconsin is undergoing a significant change. As just signed into law by Governor Evers, UW-Madison will give a spot to all students who are in the top five percent of their class. An additional part of this law also includes that all students in the top ten percent of their class will receive a spot at all other University of Wisconsin system schools. Evers released a statement explaining his rationale for signing this bill, saying “I’m glad to be signing this important legislation that will help address our state’s generational workforce challenges by ensuring greater access and opportunities for our kids to go to school, start their careers, and build their futures in Wisconsin.”
The reasoning behind this change in admissions, according to the Republicans that posed this bill, is to create more transparency with the admissions process, which is often regarded as an ambiguous process, especially among large state schools. This bill also seeks to follow Madison’s greatest factors when it comes to giving students an admissions spot: rigor of the student’s coursework and GPA.
The bill itself gives high schools a considerable amount of freedom when it comes to determining a class rank, allowing for several factors to be taken into consideration. It states, “[high schools may] establish a method for ranking pupils on the basis of academic achievement, which may take into account the pupil's grade point average, ACT examination score, course work, and other measures of academic achievement or scholastic merit.” Additionally, the bill gives flexibility to those who obtain a high school diploma via homeschooling or a private educational program, stating that they must place in the top five percent of ACT scores statewide.
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, the executive head of UW-Madison, weighed in her thoughts on this change, telling Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, “We want students from every county of this great state to know that if they’re at the top of their high school class.” Furthermore, Madison and other UW system schools included under this new law claim that it will allow for more of Wisconsin’s top students to remain in the state. Other states have also adopted laws similar to Wisconsin’s, like California, which provides a spot at any UC campus for those who rank within the top 9%. California’s rationale for this is similar to Wisconsin’s, for an economist found that the students that benefited from this “performed well on campus and earned higher annual wages than the average wage-rise of less selective institutions.”
With growing awareness of this bill, will those around the top five percent become more competitive for the top class spots, and will those below the five percent focus more on their extracurriculars and test scores? Or will it lead to a surge in admitted students by Madison and put even more pressure on the aspiring future Badgers?
Sources:
Wisconsin high school students ranked in top 5% of class guaranteed UW-Madison spot under new law
Evers signs bill requiring UW to admit top Wisconsin high school students.
Wisconsin Senate Bill - 2023 Senate Bill 367
New Wisconsin Law will guarantee admission into UW System for top high school students
