FRESHMAN COURSE PLACEMENT
You are on your way to becoming a UWM Panther – and we couldn’t be more excited to have you join the UWM family!
Being prepared to enroll in your courses is an important step to becoming a Panther! Placement into courses that properly reflect your skills and strengths will give you the greatest opportunity to be successful in your college courses. Regardless of your major, all UWM students need to satisfy general education requirements (GER) in both English and mathematics in order to earn a bachelor’s degree or meet core requirements in writing and math to earn an associate’s degree. All incoming freshmen must fulfill their course placement requirement before registering for their mandatory New Student Orientation. As part of your orientation process, you will meet with an academic advisor to enroll in your courses.
To make your transition to UW-Milwaukee and the enrollment process as seamless as possible, UW-Milwaukee has a few options available for you to fulfill your course placement requirement. Completing your course placement requirement as soon as possible will give you the best selection of orientation dates. Reading the information on this page carefully will ensure that you understand all of your course placement options and are ready to enroll in the proper level courses at your academic advising appointment.
You must fulfill course placement in the required areas of math and English. We also have tools for optional placement recommendations for foreign language courses but no foreign language placement testing is required. Please read the sections on this page about placement information in each subject to ensure you understand how you are placed into courses and to explore any additional placement options you might want to pursue.
You have two options for satisfying your course placement requirement. You must complete one of the these two options.
- Submit your ACT or SAT scores to UW Milwaukee.
OR - Use our free online placement tools in BOTH math and English. You do not need to schedule these online tests in advance. You can take them any time it is convenient for you. These online placement tools are unique to UWM and applicable at other campuses.
For more information how to complete the online placements or submit your ACT/SAT scores, please review the information in the dropdown for our first FAQ below.
Frequently Asked Questions
You must fulfill course placement in the required areas of math and English. We also have tools for optional placement recommendations for foreign language courses. Please read the sections on this page about placement information in each subject to ensure you understand how you are placed into courses and to explore any additional placement options you might want to pursue. You have two options for satisfying your course placement requirement. OR Regardless of your major, all UWM students need to satisfy general education requirements (GER) in both English and mathematics in order to earn a bachelor’s degree or meet core requirements in writing and math to earn an associate’s degree. It is important that you are placed into courses that properly reflect your skills and strengths to give you the greatest chance to be successful in your courses. Yes! You can use our free online placement tools in math and/or English. Regardless of your major, all UWM students need to satisfy general education requirements (GER) in math in order to earn a bachelor’s degree or meet core requirements in math to earn an associate’s degree. You may also have specific math course(s) required by your particular major to attain your degree above and beyond these requirements. Math placement is determined by the math score on your ACT/SAT, prior college credit earned in math courses, or by completing an ALEKS placement test via the free online Panther Math Prep program. It is very important that you assess the placement charts on the math department’s webpage and consider the math placement level you have earned along with the recommended math courses required for your major to determine if you would like to utilize our free online Panther Math Prep program to try and attain a higher placement level. Panther Math Prep is a free online placement tool that allows you to assess your current math skill level and receive a course placement via an online proctored math placement test in a platform called ALEKS. You have the opportunity to utilize the free prep, review, and practice tools within ALEKS to build and refresh your math skills and take a placement test up to five times. Math placement is designed to place you into a course(s) that will satisfy the Quantitative Literacy Competency Part A (QLA) of your required GERs for a bachelor’s degree and the core requirements for math for an associate’s degree. Completion of QLA or the core requirement can be demonstrated by satisfying one of the following options: You will need to successfully complete a semester long noncredit math course (Math 92 or 94) during your first year at UWM. After successfully completing the noncredit math course, you will be eligible to enroll in the credit bearing math course(s) required for your degree. Utilizing Panther Math Prep may be very beneficial as using the prep and review materials in the program could allow you to refresh and improve your math skills before attempting to earn a higher placement via an online placement test. Math 98 is the appropriate course for those in the STEM and Professional pathways in the chart above. After successfully completing the noncredit math course, you will be eligible to enroll in the credit bearing math course(s) required for your degree. Utilizing Panther Math Prep may be very beneficial as using the prep and review materials in the program could allow you to refresh and improve your math skills before attempting to earn a higher placement via an online placement test. You also qualify for a credit bearing math course (Math 103) that is appropriate for some majors (Education, Arts, & Humanities pathways in the chart above). If your major does not require math coursework beyond Math 103 then you will not need to take the noncredit math class, you will be able to enroll in Math 103. Please see the list of majors below whose math requirement is satisfied by successfully completing Math 103. English placement is determined by the English or ERWS score on your ACT/SAT, prior college credit earned in math courses, or by completing the online Guided English Placement. The scores on these tests place you into courses that will satisfy your General Education Requirement (GER) known as the Oral and Written Communication (OWC) Competency Part A for those seeking a bachelor’s degree or your core requirement in writing for those seeking an associate’s degree. To satisfy this requirement, a student must earn credit with a grade of C or higher in English 102 or achieve an appropriate test score to satisfy the requirement. If you have never taken the ACT/SAT or are not satisfied with your placement via your ACT/SAT scores, you can utilize our free online Guided English Placement (GEP) to attain an English course placement. The GEP is not a standardized test and there are no right or wrong answers. You will be asked a variety of questions about your educational experiences, writing and reading skills, and academic mindset. You will also be given reading and writing samples to reflect upon; no writing is required from you. The GEP takes about 30-60 minutes to complete. For more information or to complete the online English placement, visit the Guided English Placement website. English Placement Chart – Main Campus English Placement Chart – Branch Campuses We have a great option for you! As a non-native speaker and/or writer of English, you can complete your English general education requirement (GER) by taking English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing courses instead of the English writing courses designed for native speakers of English. Our EAP courses offer smaller class sizes, and instructors that specialize in working with students from various language backgrounds. The support provided in the EAP writing courses can also help you do better in all of your university courses. Recommendations for EAP course enrollment can be made based off of scores on the ACT, SAT, IETLS, TOEFL, and/or Guided English Placement (GEP). During your academic advising appointment at your New Student Orientation, you can let your advisor know that you are interested in our EAP courses. For more information on EAP courses, you can contact Brooke Haley at HaleyB@uwm.edu. Foreign language course enrollment recommendations are based on either previous college credit earned or years of high school coursework. You will need the assistance of your academic advisor to make a course recommendation and enroll in any course higher than the first level introductory course. UW-Milwaukee has a General Education Requirement (GER) for foreign language for those seeking a bachelor’s degree. The minimum requirement to meet the foreign language GER is completing at least two years of a single foreign language in high school. If you have met this requirement then completing additional foreign language coursework is optional. Students planning to pursue a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree through the College of Letters and Science may be required to complete foreign language coursework beyond the University’s General Education Requirement. Please check the list of majors that fall under the B.A. requirements to determine the foreign language requirement you will need to meet to graduate. Click here for more information on the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. There is no general foreign language requirement for those seeking an associate’s degree. If you enroll in a foreign language course higher than the level one/introductory course and earn a grade of B or better in that course, you can earn retroactive credits for the courses leading up to it without taking them. For example, if you enroll in the level three Spanish 203 course and earn a B or better, you can fill out paperwork with your academic advisor to request retroactive credit for Spanish I (103) and Spanish II (104). Foreign Language Course Recommendation Charts French You cannot move up or down a level from this placement, but the French department will run a diagnostic test in the first week of classes to let you know if you should change courses. German You may move up or down one course at your discretion; for example down if you’ve not taken the language in a few years, or up if you’ve done intense self-study or extra-curriculars such as extended travel to/living in a German-speaking country. Spanish You may move up or down a level from these courses, depending on how long it’s been since your last Spanish class and whether or not you feel prepared for the course. You can use the credit earned from your AP/IB test scores to fulfill your course placement requirement if your scores are high enough. Please review our policies on awarding credit for AP scores and IB scores. If you have earned non-elective credit in both math and English via your AP and/or IB scores, then you have fulfilled your course placement requirement. If this applies to you, please be sure to email us at NFTest@uwm.edu so we can update your PAWS account accordingly. If you have earned non-elective one subject area (math or English) but not both, you will still receive credit in that area but you will need to submit your ACT/SAT scores or fulfill your course placement requirement with one of our free online math or English placement options outlined above. Milwaukee Main Campus Waukesha Campus *Please note that due to COVID-19, our staff members are currently working remotely. All emails and voicemails will be returned within 1-2 business days.
For more information or to complete the online math placement test, visit the Panther Math Prep website.
For more information or to complete the online English placement, visit the Guided English Placement website.
Math Course Recommendations by Intended Major/Minor/Area of Study
MATH PLACEMENT LEVEL
STEM PATHWAY
(NATURAL SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, ARCHITECTURE)PROFESSIONAL PATHWAY
(BUSINESS, HEALTH SCIENCES/NURSING)MATH LITERACY PATHWAY
(ARTS & HUMANITIES)EDUCATION PATHWAY
(EDUCATION)
0
94 or 92+102+75 (grade of at least C then advance to level 20 courses)
94 or 92+102=75 (grade of at least C then advance to level 20 courses)
92 + 102 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied then eligible for 175)
92 + 102 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied then eligible for 175)
10
98 + 108 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied then advance to level 30 course Math 115)
98 + 108 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied then advance to level 30 courses)
103 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied then eligible for 175)
103 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied then eligible for 175)
20
105 (grade of at least C=QLA satisfied then advance to level 30 course Math 115)
105 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied then advance to level 30 courses)
103 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied)
175 (grade of at least C = QLA satisfied)
NOTE: Placement levels of 30 or higher satisfy the math GER QLA requirement.
Some majors/minors/areas of study require additional math coursework beyond level 30.
30, 35
115
211 (or 208 for Lubar students)
No additional QLA math course required
175
40
231 (or 213, bio)
211 (or 208 for Lubar students)
No additional QLA math course required
175
45
221 (or 231)
211 (or 208 for Lubar students)
No additional QLA math course required
175
Course Placement
Main CampusACT English Score
SAT ERWS
English 100
1-16
200-460
English 101
17-24
461-590
English 102
25-28
591-650
Test Out/GER OWC Part A satisfied
29-36
651-800
Course Placement
Branch CampusesACT English Score
SAT ERWS
CGS ENG 98
1-16
200-460
CGS ENG 101 + CGS ENG 99
17-18
461-500
CGS ENG 101
19-24
501-590
CGS ENG 102
25-28
591-650
CGS can inquire about portfolio to satisfy core requirement or enroll in CGS ENG 102
29-36
651-800
HS Coursework
French Course Placement
1 year
103
2 years
104
3 years
203
4 years
204
Successfully completed a French 5 or AP French
303
HS Coursework
German Course Placement
1 year
102
2 years
203
3 years
204
4+ years
331 or 332
HS Coursework
Spanish Course Placement
1 year
103
2 years
104
3 years
203
4+ years
204
Washington County Campus