Purdue, Wisconsin and Maryland Accepted vs. Rejected Applicants: What 214 Real 2026 Decisions Show

What separates accepted vs. rejected applicants at big public universities like Purdue, Wisconsin and Maryland? Mostly GPA, and when you apply. Purdue, UW-Madison and Maryland each admit just under half of applicants by their College Scorecard rates, and each draws the same kind of strong, engineering- and CS-heavy applicant pool as UIUC.

None of the three has enough rejections in our tally for its own write-up, so we pooled them: 214 decisions from 154 applicants who posted their full 2026 results on r/collegeresults. 150 were admitted, 44 rejected and 20 waitlisted. This is part of our larger comparison of accepted vs. rejected applicants at top colleges, which explains how the data was collected.

How to read these numbers

The applicants here were admitted in 70% of their decisions, versus about 47% for these three schools officially. That gap is who posts: strong applicants are more likely to share results, and many of them list these schools as targets or safeties alongside more selective ones. So don't read 70% as your odds. Read the gaps between groups instead.

One more caution. With 64 non-admits across three schools, a difference of a few people can move a percentage a lot. Each school's own numbers are smaller still, so treat the school-by-school figures below as hints.

School by school

The GPA line: 3.9

This is the clearest finding in the pooled data. Below a 3.9, applicants were admitted in fewer than half their decisions. From 3.9 up, the rate jumped to about 85%, and a 4.0 did only slightly better than a 3.9-something. That's a sharper cliff than we saw at the most selective schools, where admit rates climbed band by band all the way to a 4.0; see does a 4.0 GPA matter at top colleges.

The pattern shows up at each school:

• UW-Madison: admits had a median 3.98 unweighted GPA versus 3.70 for everyone else. None of the 15 non-admits who stated a GPA had a 4.0, versus 15 of 38 admits.
• Maryland: 3.96 versus 3.75. Just 1 of 19 non-admits had a 4.0, versus 10 of 31 admits.
• Purdue: 3.98 versus 3.93, a smaller gap, because at Purdue the major mattered more (below).

Test scores mattered less. Where scores were sent, applicants at 1550 or above were admitted 83% of the time versus 70.5% below, and SAT bands didn't line up neatly. Looking at people rather than decisions, applicants admitted to at least one of the three had a median 3.98 GPA, 1530 SAT and 11 AP/IB courses; those admitted to none had 3.80, 1515 and 9.

Early action made a big difference

All three schools offer a non-binding early action round. In our sample:

• Early action applications were admitted 99 times out of 119 (83%).
• Regular decision applications were admitted 18 times out of 31 (58%).

Applicants who apply early may be stronger or more organized in ways this data can't see, so this doesn't prove applying early raises your own odds. But since early action is non-binding, there's little reason not to. Only 9 applicants said they were deferred, and 5 of those were admitted later. We compare the options in early decision vs. early action.

Purdue: your major is your pool

Purdue admits students into a specific college and major, and its sample was dominated by engineering and computer science applicants: 50 of the 61 admits and 21 of the 24 non-admits. By the majors applicants listed (some listed more than one):

• Engineering: 32 admitted, 13 not.
• Computer science: 22 admitted, 9 not.
• Biology and health: 11 admitted, 1 not.

So at Purdue, a strong engineering or CS applicant competes mostly with other strong engineering and CS applicants. That's the same dynamic we found at UIUC and, more sharply, at UW Seattle. At Wisconsin and Maryland, CS applicants did about as well as everyone else (15 of 20 and 17 of 23). Our CS comparison across 36 colleges covers where CS is and isn't a separate, harder pool.

Activities: what showed up more among admits

Admit rate within the sample, for decisions where the applicant listed each item, versus decisions where they didn't:

• A named scholarship or fellowship: 86.5% versus 66.7% (30 people).
• A paid job: 80.2% versus 63.9% (60 people).
• Coding or tech projects: 77.4% versus 67.7% (34 people).

And some came with lower rates:

• A school award: 61.5% versus 75.0% (64 people).
• Community service: 67.3% versus 73.3% (83 people).
• Research: 67.4% versus 72.0% (66 people).

Paid jobs came out ahead again, as they did across the Ivy League and at Northwestern and UW Seattle. Research, which lined up with admission at UIUC and Georgia Tech, came with no edge here. None of these gaps is as large as the GPA cliff, so treat them as secondary.

What Purdue, Wisconsin and Maryland applicants can take from this

• Aim for a 3.9 or higher unweighted. Below that, the admit rate in this sample roughly halved.
• Apply early action. It's non-binding, and early applicants did much better here.
• At Purdue, plan around your major. Engineering and CS applicants compete in their own crowded pools.
• Indiana resident? Purdue admitted 75% of Indiana applicants in 2026; see Indiana Pre-Admissions and Purdue/IU deadlines.
• Real responsibility counts. Paid jobs and named scholarships came with higher admit rates; school awards and service hours didn't set anyone apart.

For 25 more public universities, from UC Santa Barbara and Florida to Penn State and Texas A&M, see big public university accepted vs. rejected applicants, where the same 3.9 line showed up.

Compare with Michigan, another big public, where admits and non-admits looked almost identical on paper and deferrals rarely ended well.

Sources

• College Intel's tally of self-reported r/collegeresults posts, 2026 admissions cycle (445 posts logged as of Oct 16, 2026; 214 decisions at Purdue, UW-Madison and Maryland from 154 applicants). Recruited athletes and transfer applicants excluded. Aggregates only; no individual post is reproduced, and no figure rests on fewer than 3 people.
• College Scorecard -- U.S. Department of Education (official admission rates)