Transfer agreement to help MATC students to UW College of Engineering
Madison Area Technical College is set to provide its students with a road map for earning access into UW-Madison's highly regarded College of Engineering.
On Monday, MATC and UW-Madison officials plan to sign an engineering transfer agreement which will guarantee qualified MATC students admission to 10 degree programs at the College of Engineering.
"This basically helps elevate, in the eyes of UW faculty, the rigor and validity of our courses and also gives our students a clear pathway -- if you do this, this and this here, these credits will follow you," said David Shonkwiler, MATC's dean of the Center for Agriscience and Technologies.
In the U.S. News and World Report's 2008 edition of America's Best Colleges, UW-Madison's College of Engineering ranked 13th among all doctoral institutions and seventh among public doctoral-granting institutions.
"In every region of Wisconsin, business leaders will tell you they need more engineers," UW-Madison College of Engineering Dean Paul Peercy said in a statement. "This transfer agreement with MATC shows high school students and others a straightforward path to an engineering degree."
According to Shonkwiler, the transfer applies to: chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, engineering mechanics, geological engineering, industrial engineering, material science and engineering, mechanical engineerin, and nuclear engineering.
MATC spokesman Bill Bessette said the UW System has approved a $60,000 grant for the engineering transfer program. It will help with faculty development, advising and tutoring at MATC.
The intent of the engineering transfer program is simply to spell out for MATC students exactly what they'll have to do over their freshman and sophomore years of college to transfer to UW-Madison, and to make that process as seamless as possible.
Among other things, MATC engineering transfer program students will have to carry at least a 3.0 overall grade-point average -- and a 2.5 GPA or higher in match and science courses -- to get into UW-Madison's College of Engineering. MATC students also need to declare their intent prior to the end of their second semester by specifying which of the 10 engineering programs they wish to pursue.
MATC has long been UW-Madison's top source of transfer students. Unlike many four-year campuses, MATC offers both flexible scheduling and relatively small classes taught by those whose main focus is on instruction, not research.
This is not the first transfer agreement between MATC and UW-Madison. The two schools also have a liberal arts guaranteed transfer contract, and a Connections Program agreement. Connections is a dual admission program, where students complete their freshmen and sophomore years at MATC before transferring to UW-Madison.
All of these programs allow students to fulfill general studies course requirements before moving on to a four-year college.
"This engineering transfer agreement is another example of our wonderful partnership with UW-Madison," MATC President Bettsey Barhorst said in a press release. "MATC will be the largest feeder of transfer students to the College of Engineering."
According to numbers compiled by UW-Madison, over the past decade 200 to 250 students generally transfer directly from MATC to UW-Madison annually, making up between 12 to 15 percent of the total group of new transfer students. This past school year, that transfer number spiked to 292 students from MATC being admitted directly to UW-Madison.
