As average grade point averages of college students continue to rise nationwide, UW-Madison may have unique reasons for adhering to this trend. According to Robert Seltzer, director of admissions, increases may reflect changes in UW-Madison's reputation.
GPAs are on the rise because UW-Madison continues to draw a larger applicant pool each year, which allows for greater selectivity in the admissions process, Seltzer said.
\I think Wisconsin is becoming a more popular school,"" he said.
Seltzer said he thinks UW-Madison's increasing popularity is due to growing national recognition and relatively inexpensive tuition rates compared to other top universities. Following the trend, UW-Madison freshmen ended the year with higher GPAs than their preceding class, according to Seltzer.
Jeff Shokler, student service coordinator for the College of Letters and Science, said the applicant pool for the honors program also continues to grow. According to Shokler, the application increase resulted from more incoming freshmen graduating in the top 10 percent of their high school class, which is an admission requirement for the honors program.
""We're seeing growth mainly due to the fact that more students are eligible to apply and come into the program as first-year students,"" he said.
Despite the recent rise in applicants, admission criteria established four to five years ago remains. In response to the increase, the honors program has changed to accommodate more students.
""Our incoming class has grown in size from ... [350 students], three or four years ago ... to up about 450 now,"" he said. ""We've allowed the program to grow a little bit in response to the larger number of students who are eligible to apply.""
Factoring in the relatively large group of incoming freshmen in the honors program, the total number of participating students has risen from 1,200 to 1,300 in the last few years.
Because of UW-Madison's substantial pool of qualified applicants, some high school counselors advise prospective students to plan for college early in their high school careers.
Joel Dermo, a guidance counselor at Parkview High School in Orfordville, Wis. said he advises prospective UW-Madison students to not only meet admissions requirements, but to take classes that go beyond requirements to stand out in a competitive pool.
However, not all program expansions are necessarily occurring because of the overall rise in applicants to UW-Madison.
Though the honors program in the school of nursing has also grown in recent years, Sharon Nellis, assistant dean for undergraduate programs in the School of Nursing, attributed increases to the nursing shortage and students' desire to enter a profession where they can easily land a job after college.
