The “Why” Behind Application Material Requirements

As we move into another exciting fall of wonderful students and exciting college applications, I wanted to share a little background on UW-Green Bay’s requirements for official application materials. As you know, it’s important for us to review accurate academic information to align our decisions with students’ greatest likelihood of success at the UW-Green Bay campuses. High school transcripts and test scores are an important way of gathering that information about historical academic performance.

At the same time, it is important to us that we remove as many barriers as possible for students when applying to UW-Green Bay.  For these reasons, we want to outline our preferred and acceptable ways of receiving transcripts and ACT scores:

High School Transcripts

  • Our first preference is to receive transcripts directly from the school using the method set up for students to access and request their transcripts. We plan to refer students to these online or in-person methods to request their transcripts.
  • If students are facing issues in sending their transcripts or time is pressing for a student’s admissions decision, we will accept a transcripts emailed to us by a school counselor to complete a student’s application for review.
  • If a UW-Green Bay admissions counselor is at your school, we are happy to accept hard copy transcripts printed for the admissions counselors as official to complete a student’s application.
  • Please note, as always, that we must receive a final official high school transcript when it becomes available after a student’s graduation.

ACT or SAT scores

  • Our first preference is to receive students’ score through the official testing organization. This allows us to stay connected with a student and provide valuable information about application dates and deadlines even before they apply.
  • In order to remove barriers for students in the application process, we will use ACT scores reported on a student’s high school transcript to review the student’s application for admission. We will also accept a score report directly from a student’s counselor.
  • If score reports are not available on your high school’s transcripts and the fee for sending scores through ACT/SAT is a serious obstacle for a student (specifically students who are also using an application fee waiver), we are happy to provide a waiver form for the ACT test score report fee.

With so many recent changes in the past few years, we wanted to be sure to provide information and context for you as you assist students in completing their applications.  Like you, we want students to have their best start in college, and we hope to do our part to assist.

If you have unique questions, concerns, or ideas, please connect with me at jonesj@uwgb.edu or 920-465-2111.

About the author: Jennifer Jones is a proud UW-Green Bay alumna with a passion for the transformative power of a UW-Green Bay education. She resides in Green Bay with her husband, two sons, and vivacious dog, Indiana Jones.