University Honors Committee - February Meeting

Director of Admissions Rob Seltzer gave the committee an Admissions Update. By last Thursday afternoon the University received 24, 766 applications and expects to have a total over 25,000 - meaning about 500 more applications received than last year. UW has had a steady increase in applications over the past few years. This year, the Admissions office is under strict orders to keep the 5,700 cap for students in the freshman class. As a result, less postponed applicants will be admitted.

Jeff Shokler of L&S Honors reported that they have made a few changes. In previous years, L&S Honors sent applications to select incoming L&S freshman who met quantitative requirement. Their post-graduate survey found that most students were part of L&S Honors only for credentials. In an attempt to focus on improving knowledge rather than students' resumes, starting this year, L&S Honors sent applications to all incoming L&S freshman. The new invitation details the goals of L&S Honors (which can also be found at http://www.honors.ls.wisc.edu/SiteContent.aspx?id=269). The new first-year student application to L&S Honors does not ask for GPA, class rank, or ACT/SAT scores but has more short-answer essay questions and space to list activities in which the student participated.

Undergraduate Symposium - The committee encourages all students to consider participating and sends a reminder that the online applications are due this Thursday, February 28.

University Honors Committee Assessment

The University Honors Committee is looking to assess all UW Honors programs. The main goal of this assessment is to determine what the results of an honors education are at UW as a whole and within specific colleges (Letters & Science, Nursing, Education, etc.). A sub-committee of the University Honors Committee will be meeting to begin formulating the assessment; though I am not the student representative on this sub-committee, I'd be happy to pass along any ideas or comments students have about University Honors.
The Committee also recently rewrote their mission statement and discussed the importance of the upcoming 2008 Undergraduate Symposium.