Universities of Wisconsin schools will soon be offering admission to tens of thousands of Wisconsin high school seniors without receiving applications.

It’s the first class of students to benefit from the Direct Admit Wisconsin program, an effort launched in December to boost enrollment at UW campuses.

Participating school districts shared students’ grade point average and course credits directly with UW System administration after their junior year of high school. The new program, which launched in December, identifies whether a student qualifies for direct admission to any of the 10 participating campuses.

System President Jay Rothman said Wednesday that acceptance emails will be sent to students starting next week and will continue into September.

“These students have already demonstrated through their junior year of high school that they have the ability to succeed at one of our universities, and to put themselves on a path to a better life and to a better career,” Rothman said.

He said around 50,000 students across 330 high schools were eligible for direct admissions program, adding that “tens of thousands” will receive an offer in coming weeks. Rothman noted that each university has its own admissions requirements, but a number of students can expect to be directly admitted to multiple schools.

UW system enrollment has steadily declined over the past decade. Historically, 32 percent of the state’s high school grads have enrolled at UW schools immediately after graduation. That fell to about 27 percent in 2020.

Looking to the future, Rothman said direct admissions could change the way UW schools approach recruiting students. He said university leaders view direct admissions as “a new pathway, but not the only pathway” for admittance.

“There will be the traditional application process,” he said. “But our hope is that this will allow us to connect with more students and have the opportunity to discuss with them why college may be a good fit for them, how they can be helped through a financial aid package, and really try to reach those students who would not have otherwise reached out to us.”

More than half of the state’s public high schools participated in the first year of the direct admissions program, according to Rothman. He said many of the districts that declined did not use one of the three student information systems accepted by the program. He said the UW administration is already working to add another system to the program to allow more districts to participate.

UW-Eau Claire, UW-La Crosse and UW-Madison will not be accepting students through the Direct Admit program. Rothman said participation is up to each campus, but the schools will have the opportunity to sign on to the program in the future.

“Each of our universities is unique,” Rothman said. “They have different approaches to enrollment and so forth, and we wanted them to have the flexibility that they need to best serve the students that they enroll.”

Students that receive direct admission to one or more UW schools will be asked to provide basic demographic information, which campuses they’re interested in attending and their high school transcript.

Rothman said university staff will then help students identify which university and degree program may be the best fit and what financial aid may be available to them.