How/why does this happen? Out of state. I don’t really care, but just wondering.
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Usually with UVA if you get deferred it means they want to see something further like your mid year grades to help their admission decision. Also being out of state it is harder to get in because 2/3 of the class has to be from Virginia:) I got deferred as well, and know the wait is hard but hopefully we’ll hear good news come April! Also congrats on Princeton, that’s huge!
UVA OOS is like getting admitted into an Ivy; it’s sooooo competitive (22%!!!). I got deferred by Yale and accepted by UVA, so we’re in the opposite boat (I WISH I WAS ON YOURS!!!).
My daughter’s friends younger sister was deferred from Middlebury and then rejected but happy when she was accepted at Harvard, certainly unexpected. UVA OOS is exceptionally difficult admit.
It happens all the time.
Admit rates can be misleading, especially since they are so easily impacted (some would say manipulated) by the admissions tactics used by the schools. Many folks get mislead by UVA’s seemingly reasonable admit rates.
If you want to drive your admit rate down, simply deploy ED or SCEA as part of your admissions model. The high yield you get from ED and SCEA offers lets your school drive its overall admit rate down into the single digits. UVA is one of the few top 25 schools (others include MIT, Gtown, ND) that have unrestricted (or lightly restricted) early action. Which means UVA’s yield is lower and its admit rates are higher than most other top 25 schools.
But if you look at the credentials of the accepted/enrolled students (which is a much more real indicator of selectivity) you’ll see that UVA OOS admissions is an Ivy level playing field.
Princeton’s middle ACT range from the last cycle was 32-35. For the recent EA round, UVA’s accepted student ACT range was 31-34.
Back out the in-state kids, and that UVA range goes up a bit. Back out the out-of-state legacies (fyi, all of UVA’s legacies are in the OOS pool), and those numbers go up even more. So the stats wind up at the Ivy level, and then its down to the vagaries of holistic review.
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Hey man, I got into Princeton but not UNC. The thing to remember is that with schools like UVA, even the slightest “okay” or “average” thing can set you behind another “outstanding” OOS student. The officers could have just thought of your essays as average, or wanted to see you do better in certain areas. With so much subjectivity, none of us can or probably will ever know. Princeton is amazing. Cheers.
They thought UVA was a safety for you. They don’t like that. My guess. But congrats for Princeton
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First, this is a very old post. Second, UVa says they do not consider “level of student interest” in making admissions decisions. Therefore, there is no need to keep contacting the admissions staff to convince them that you are really interested in UVa. There is no need to take an official tour of UVa before you submit an application.
Among the most competitive universities, there are tons of highly qualified applicants. We cannot know every factor that an admissions committee considered to be most relevant in their decisions. There is an old story about how it is supposedly easy to get into some universities if you are a tuba player, because so many marching bands need good tuba players, who are in short supply.
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The original post was made at the end of January. It’s barely March. That’s not old by CC standards.
I don’t think anyone can know for sure why they’re not accepted to a particular school when their stats are competitive. They can only accept so many students, though. When all the students are highly qualified, they must have to split hairs to decide which to accept. It’s not a reflection on you at all.
My mistake - I got confused with another old post.
10 or so years ago, my sister got waitlisted at UVA and accepted to Penn. It happens; don’t sweat it. Congrats on your accomplishments!