<p>Hi! UVA is my dream school as many have said on this board :) I just had a couple questions about admissions.</p>
<ol>
<li>How do school acceptance rates affect admission?
My school is a OOS highly-ranked public school but somehow fewer than 10 students have ever gotten in to UVa. And we are a relatively large school. My guidance counselor told me that she had only had one of her students admitted, and he had recently moved from Virginia and had kept his state residency. Does that hinder your chances? or improve them? neither?</li>
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<p>andddd</p>
<ol>
<li>From reading this forum it seems that a "hook" is very important in OOS admissions. What is that exactly? Would a passion in music be considered one? I've been taking piano for 10 years, violin for 7 years, and teach myself guitar (have been for 5 years) For violin I am in school orchestra, private lessons, and an orchestra at New England Conservatory. I am first chair in my school orchestra :) Just not sure if that is what people consider a hook.</li>
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<p>Just looking to improve my chances of admissions because i would loveeeee to attend one day! Congrats to all of those admitted this year :)
Thank you!</p>
<p>Also, for foreign language, I know there is some sort of requirement if you attend the school. But, does it look bad if you do not take a language all 4 years or high school? I am taking honors french 4 as a junior, but my school does not have a french 5. You are allowed to take it online, and it is an AP course online. I am already taking 4 APs senior year and I heard that last year 3 of the smartest kids took it and only 1 passed So there isn’t really a good option for me. Should I do one year of Latin and Greek or Mandarin? or is it okay to not take a foreign language my senior year?</p>
<p>Forgot to ask this in the original post haha</p>
<p>1.) As with getting into any state school, being OOS puts you at a slight disadvantage compared to IS students. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. </p>
<p>2.) Hooks are generally things that are you can’t really “develop” in an application. Usually these include legacy (whether or not your parents attended said university), being an underrepresented minority, being a female in engineering, being a recruited athlete, etc. Your fantastic music ability would not be considered a “hook” per se; it’s simply a very impressive extracurricular. </p>
<p>3.) It does not look bad if you do not take a foreign language all four years. Take this from a recently accepted student who dropped Spanish after junior year. :)</p>
<p>Most good universities want a min. of 3 years of language in high school. My son was admitted to UVa with 3 years of language in high school (and 3 years in middle school, which doesn’t count). Good universities look at the totality of the challenge level of your high school curriculum.</p>
<p>1) Submit an “arts supplement” to document your musical ability. This would generally be a CD or a DVD of performances; sometimes composers submit scores. The relevant music faculty–probably one of the violin professors in your case–listen to these submissions and send their evaluations to Admissions. Musical talent isn’t going to get you in all by itself but it is a plus.</p>
<p>The two violin faculty, BTW, both get great reviews from their students. UVA’s symphony orchestra combines faculty principals in each instrument (selected like other faculty in a national search) with local professional musicians and UVA students. It’s unusual in that it isn’t a “student orchestra” but neither is it fully professional. The advantage, for students, is that it can program repertory that would be more challenging than many student orchestras could handle.</p>
<p>2) UVA (and other schools as far as I know) care about the level of language you’ve taken, not whether you’re doing it all four years of hs. If you finish high school level 4 in your junior year–as many people do who start a language in 8th grade–then you’re fine for UVA or anywhere. If you’re not planning to take the French subject test, just buy an AP review book and go over stuff (vocabulary, common idioms, grammar rules, irregular verbs, that sort of stuff) before you take the French language placement test upon your arrival. Otherwise you can do poorly on the placement test only because you’ve forgotten stuff during your year off, and you end up having to repeat work you already really know.</p>
<p>3) Admission standards are higher for OOS than for IS students. Exactly how much higher is hard to learn because I don’t believe UVA provides separate tallies.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the responses! My aunt and uncle attended medical school here, but it is usually parents attending that is considered legacy, right? Thanks for all of the info No french for me senior year i guess. And I’ll think about doing a supplement.
Congrats on acceptance n0vad3m0n!!</p>
<p>Junior = French 4 = yes, its fine
new language in 12th grade? yes, go for it!
my kid who will be going to UVA started a new language in 12th grade
because many students in my kid’s HS finished “Language4 & AP Language” earlier in HS so they are able to either proceed w/ "language5 " if they wanted or start a new one to for personal interest/ purely for joy of learning a new one.</p>
<p>~Hook: music is not a hook, its your EC achievements. My kid is great w/ art so she sent in her Art portfolio in a cd & sent it to UVA art dept. I sure hope someone there had looked at her artwork:) so do the same w/ your music if you can record them in a cd.</p>
<p>~ i wouldn’t worry how many students in your HS got in the previous years…as long as YOU get in, that’s all that matters, right? Colleges ( UVA & many other schools ) like to see student who has taken a rigorous course load in all 4 yrs of HS, as long as you do that & try your best, you’ll get into a great college.</p>
<p>I am an IS student, and I took 3 years of Spanish, and then 2 years of Latin. I had some scheduling conflict with Spanish 4 and such, but I don’t know if my counselor even mentioned that in her Common App Report (She’s very forgetful). But I still got in =]</p>
<p>UVA, and most colleges, look at applications holistically. Not continuing a language will not get you rejected or waitlisted. If they did, then college would be quite the obnoxious process… Don’t worry about the small things such as how far you go with language. Make sure you concentrate on leadership, extracurriculars, ESSAYS (cannot be stressed enough, ESPECIALLY for OOS applicants), and good grades. </p>
<p>Manage those, and you’re pretty much set =]</p>
<p>thanks everyone!! i’m glad french is not that big of a deal I’ve been working on my essay, i’ll make sure it comes out great! I’m just not sure if my idea is “original” enough.</p>
<p>I’ll be totally honest with you - I wrote my essays in two days. I spent too much time on the University of Chicago’s essays (which was totally worth it, their essay topics are amazing!) so my essays weren’t super special. What it did show, however, was my keen interest in science, and my entire college resume/application sort of pointed toward math/science, which helped in the long run. </p>
<p>But yeah! Don’t worry buddy, everything will turn out great! PM me your essays if you want =P</p>
<p>Thanks so much everyone!!! I only have it hand-written (i write better when i can handwrite, I don’t know why haha) but i’ll type it out and PM it to you guys this weekend It’s only my first draft (I don’t think it’s very good) but I plan on fixing it up and would really appreciate feedback :)</p>
So there isn’t really a good option for me. Should I do one year of Latin and Greek or Mandarin? or is it okay to not take a foreign language my senior year?</p>
No french for me senior year i guess. And I’ll think about doing a supplement.