UW Admission core subject requirements

To be considered for admission to the UW, you must complete a minimum level of preparation in six core subject areas. A majority of applicants have completed all or most of these requirements in high school. However, if a core subject requirement was not completed in high school, it must be completed at a college level before enrolling at the UW. An academic associate degree does not automatically satisfy the core subject requirements.

MYTH: If you complete an associate degree, your high school background doesn't matter.

FACT: The UW still checks for high school core courses, even if you have an associate degree.

For transfer students, the most common deficiencies in core subject requirements occur in foreign language and math.

Foreign language

Core subject requirement for admission

Two years of high school study of a single foreign language or ten quarter-credits in a single foreign language in college are required for admission to the UW. Students from non-English-speaking countries may be exempt from this requirement. See Core Subject Requirements for a complete discussion of the foreign language core requirement.

Remember that many majors have an additional foreign language graduation requirement.

All majors in the College of Arts and Sciences require completion of a foreign language through the third quarter college level with at least a 2.0 grade, or a proficiency test that places you at the fourth-quarter college level. (This is true even if you completed three or more years of foreign language in high school). Therefore, if you plan to take two quarters of foreign language to meet the UW core subject requirement for admission, take the third quarter course before you transfer. For more information about the College of Arts and Sciences foreign language requirement, see Foreign Language.

MYTH: If you had three years of a foreign language in high school, you won't have to take any more in college.

FACT: Although this is true for some colleges and universities, it is not true at the UW. All UW majors in the College of Arts and Sciences require at least the third college quarter of a language, or placement into the fourth quarter.

Mathematics

Three years of high school math (usually algebra, geometry, and advanced algebra) are required for admission. If your high math preparation was insufficient, before you transfer you must complete a college intermediate algebra course with a grade of "C" (2.0) or higher. Completion of mathematics courses that have intermediate algebra as a prerequisite (except statistics courses) also satisfy the requirement.

Many community college associate degrees have a quantitative reasoning requirement. Often this requirement can be satisfied by taking a non-mathematics courses such as logic or economics. A logic or economics course will not satisfy the math core subject requirement even if the course lists intermediate algebra as a prerequisite.