years. Of the 19% of the incoming freshman class who submitted SAT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite scores were 1240-1450. Of the 8% of enrolled freshmen in 2021 who submitted ACT scores; the middle 50 percent Composite score was between 29 and 34. In the 2020–2021 academic year, 24 freshman students were National Merit Scholars. The university uses capacity constrained majors, a gate-keeping process that requires most students to apply to an internal college or faculty. New applications are usually considered once or twice annually, and few students are admitted each time. The screening process is based on cumulative academic performance, recommendation letters and extracurricular activities. Research UW's research budget consistently ranks among the top 5 in both public and private universities in the United States. It surpassed the $1.0 billion research budget milestone in 2012, and university endowments reached almost $5.0 billion by 2021. UW is the largest recipient of federal research funding among public universities, and currently ranks top 2nd among all public and private universities in the nation. In 2014, the University of Washington School of Oceanography and the UW Applied Physics Laboratory completed the construction of the first high-power underwater cabled observatory in the United States. Gabrielle Rocap, one of the researchers who discovered arsenic-breathing microbes in the Pacific, is part of the department's faculty. To promote equal academic opportunity, especially for people of low income, UW launched Husky Promise in 2006. Families of income up to 65 percent of state median income or 235 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible. With this, up to 30 percent of undergraduate students may be eligible. The cut-off income level that UW set is the highest in the nation, making top-quality education available to more people. Then UW President, Mark Emmert, simply said that being "elitist is not in our DNA". "Last year, the University of Washington moved to a more comprehensive approach [to admissions], in which the admissions staff reads the entire application and looks at grades within the context of the individual high school, rather than relying on computerized cutoffs." UW was the host university of ResearchChannel program (now defunct), the only TV channel in the United States dedicated solely for the dissemination of research from academic institutions and research organizations. Participation of ResearchChannel included 36 universities, 15 research organizations, two corporate research centers and many other affiliates. Alan Michelson, now Head of the