<p>VADAD1, I understand that you are upset but I would suggest you ask your daughter’s permission before you consider contacting anyone else about this. You have already divulged her high school, colleges where she has been rejected and waitlisted, and the school she is waiting to hear from. There was not one true safety on her list and you are potentially opening her up to more scrutiny (why was she not admitted anywhere, what were her essays, EC’s,recommendations like,etc.). As a taxpayer, by the way, you had many other fine instate schools that your daughter could have applied to. Unfortunately, she only applied to UVa, which in a very competitive admissions process which uses an holistic approach, is really not a safety for anyone. Good luck to your daughter .</p>
<p>I agree with sevmom. Virginia has many good schools (with honors colleges) that would have made fine back up choices. I made sure my kids had at least one of them on their list. She might want to consider applying to one with rolling admissions now.
I also agree about consulting your daughter. Her friends may frequent this board, and your data may make her easily recognizable. I am sure that she will get over this disappointment, but it would probably be easier if everyone is not made aware of her situation.</p>
<p>I think the taxpayers need to know what factors are weighed in these “holistic” reviews and what they mean by admitting students that “meet institutional needs.” Private schools can apply all the secret sauce they want in the admissions process because it’s their dime. Public institutions should be more transparent and accountable.</p>
<p>Dean J, I certainly never implied that UVA had a bias against Prince George. I was responding to a comment that going to a rural school makes it easier to get into UVA.</p>
<p>Since the entire Central District of 8 very large high schools only sent 16 kids to UVA last year, I’ll let that number speak for itself in that regards.</p>
<p>I appreciate all the kind people giving me advice. I really do. </p>
<p>Sevmom, my daughter is all behind me getting in contact with the legislature and finding out how a child that is top 2% in her class and has an SAT of 2330 is rejected from a state institution. I certainly wouldn’t do that without her blessing.</p>
<p>And trust me, we realize our error in calculating what “holistic” means.</p>
<p>I realize that UVA is “competitive” and “holistic”, but in this very thread people were telling the original poster that he was 100% to get in…based on very similar stats to my daughter.</p>
<p>And it’s really not the point. The point is UVA is a public institution, and admission standards for instate students needs to be quantifiable.</p>
<p>
This is laid out in the Common Application and the application instructions. The components of the application are not secret.
I assumed this was public knowledge, but since you are new to the boards, you might not be area of them. There are five schools/colleges/programs that take first year students and we have a VA/OOS ratio that is mandated by the Commonwealth that we must maintain in the student body.
I’m not running reports on a Sunday afternoon, so neither of us knows how many students were offered admission from your county last year. In general, about half of the students who get offers opt to attend.</p>
<p>Dean J said- “There are five schools/colleges/programs that take first year students and we have a VA/OOS ratio that is mandated by the Commonwealth that we must maintain in the student body”</p>
<p>I was curious if there is a set ratio, or a set minimum ratio. I searched for quite a while online and could not find an answer. As I understand it, in NC there is a minimum percentage that must be from in-state. In other words, they aren’t stuck taking only 18% from out-of-state, they could do 8% if they wanted. Could VA schools do the same? (not that they would, because of budget constraints).</p>
<p>There is a lot of info in a school’s Common Data Set. For example, what do they really look at for admission? I was amazed to see SATs are low on the list of importance. </p>
<p>Very important</p>
<p>State residency
Class rigor
GPA
Class rank
Recommendations
First generation
Legacy
Race</p>
<p>Important</p>
<p>Character
Talent
Essays
Extra-curriculars
SAT/ACT scores</p>
<p>Considered</p>
<p>Geographical
Volunteerism
Work experience</p>
<p>Well I’m not that surprised about the SAT scores, but I am a bit surprised that they actually admit that Legacy is more important than SAT scores.</p>
<p>130million dollars/8.1 million people in Virginia = 16 dollars. Your 16 dollars definitely grants that your daughter should get into UVA. </p>
<p>Only 11% of UVAs budget comes from the state, which isn’t a lot actually. The rest come from research grants, ALUMNI, and other sources that aren’t taxpayers.</p>
<p>No, my daughter’s performance grants that she should get into UVA.</p>
<p>If that 130 million is so nominal, UVA should voluntarily give up all state funding, then their admissions office can do as they please without anybody complaining about it.</p>
<p>You left out the biggest source of funds. Tuition.</p>
<p>UVA gets more money from the state than it does from alumni. By 30 million dollars in the most recent year, and by 50 million last year.</p>
<p>Plue- don’t get me wrong, your point is still valid and I agree with it- but, your argument assumes all 8.1M pay taxes, which they don’t, and that everyone pays equally, which they don’t. IOW- the number is considerably higher than 16 bucks.</p>
<p>In 2009 when my child was a first year I sat in President Casteen’s welcome speech. He had good news and bad. The bad news was the state of VA cut UVA’s funding in half. The good news was that the state only contributed 6% of UVA’s operating budget to begin with.</p>
<p>130M contributed by the state to UVa is really not much at all. I am really amazed that the state of VA and the residents of the state get such a good deal by having their children attend such a super university with a relatively low tuition. If UVa does go private as some have suggested, the biggest loser will be the residents of the state.</p>
<p>@VADAD1 I’m sure your daughter is a magnificent student but so were very many of the 28,000 students that applied. It has been repeatedly stated that UVA uses a “holistic” approach; therefore, repeatedly stating your daughter’s level of performance will not change their decision. There are very many applicants with stellar stats but the realization is there simply is not enough room to accommodate every student. If every student that had a GPA and SAT score above a certain threshold were granted admission, UVA would become merely a factory that pumps out kids with degrees. </p>
<p>As for the financial aspects of the debate, we as taxpayers are given a fair return on our investment. 2/3s of the student body at UVA consists of Virginia residents as mandated by the state. No one is obligated to attend a certain public state institution because they pay taxes. If you’re going to use that argument then why not attend any of the other 20+ public state institutions that also receive financial assistance?</p>
<p>At this point, continuing this dispute will not help anyone. Prolonging this debate will only cause more anger and stress for everyone. I am sure your daughter will attend a great institution regardless of whether or not that will be UVA. It’s best to move on from decisions and look to the future. If your daughter ends up studying at one of Virginia’s Community Colleges then you will be saving money while still getting a decent education. If after all this, she still feels strongly about attending UVA, she can apply to transfer.</p>
<p>One more thing I want to add in an attempt to make sure people have the correct data available. Many people have said that there are just so many applicants with incredible SATs that UVA could fill up an entire class by just using that variable. </p>
<p>That is not even close to true (at least if you define stellar as above 2280, and that remains the case even if you define it as a lower number). According to College Board there were 61,300+ SAT tests taken in VA last year. Even assuming that nobody took it twice, which we know is not true, less than 1/2 of 1% of all students score a 2280 or more. That means that if VA follows the national average that 300 kids in the Commonwealth scored that high (again, assuming each test taker only took in once. If you assume twice per kid then you get 150). </p>
<p>Using a cutoff of 2200 you still only get about 300-600 kids in VA depending on how many multiple test takers there were.</p>
<p>I think you see my point- UVA could automatically take every kid above 2280 and it would be a drop in the bucket of their total class size.</p>
<p>I am not agreeing or disagreeing with the above statement but assuming your information is correct, if you factor in all the other applicants that have SAT scores of over 2200, it is possible that there are over 3000 applicants in this group. As a side note to all readers, please keep in mind the SAT score is merely a part of the application. It is not the sole factor that determines the decision and therefore should not be regarded as such.</p>
<p>@TV4caster, Very interesting stat!</p>
<p>The important question, how much weight does the SAT score carry in the admission decision?</p>
<p>For example, is it 10%, 20%, or just 5%, etc?</p>
<p>A student with 2280 SAT’s and a very high GPA but with either weak EC’s, little or no leadership,lack of volunteerism , less than glowing recommendations , bland essays or any combination of the above may very well be a less attractive student to UVa than a student with somewhat lower SAT’s but with other qualities that add to the university community.</p>
<p>How do you know whether the ECs, leadership ability, level of volunterrism (stated in the application) are what they appear to be? How much embellishment is there?</p>
<p>At least SAT, ACT, GPA, etc are more objective. I have no problem in considering ECs, leadership, volunteerism. The question how much weight is given to each factor. Otherwise, the whole thing looks too arbitary.</p>