Chances for University of Virginia

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Please let me know if i have a chance or not.</p>

<p>SAT: 600 Reading, 700 Math, 590 Writing
SAT II: 710 Math 2, 670 Chemistry
ACT: 28 composite
Weighted GPA: 4.31 (as of the end of Junior year)
4.63 (if you take into account my first semester of senior year)
Unweighted GPA: 3.95
Class Rank: 6/591 (top 1%)
Public school in Northern Virginia.</p>

<p>Current Courses:
AP Psychology
Networking/Design DE
AP Calculus AB
AP Statistics
AP Government and Politics
AP Literature and Composition
AP Physics C</p>

<p>Past AP courses:
AP Chemistry
AP Lang
AP World History
AP Computer Science</p>

<p>Community College Courses:
Database and Design DE
Networking/Design DE</p>

<p>Work experience:
I have had 2 jobs
A clerk at a store for over a year
A life Guard at a water park for 2 summers.</p>

<p>Extra Curricular:
Schools Varsity Swim team for the last 4 years (captain)
I have been on a year round swim team for the last 9 (almost 10) years
National Honor Society Member
Science National Honor Society Member (2 years)
Math Honor Society (Junior year)
Debate team (Sophomore year)
Key Club (senior and sophomore year)</p>

<p>Volunteering:
Volunteered as a swim coach during the summer
Helped at a hospital during the summer
Tutoring peers
Volunteered at the election
100+ hours</p>

<p>Awards:
National AP Scholar
Varsity Letter
Academic Letter</p>

<p>Parent History and my background:
I am a first generation american
Neither of my parents went to college in america
They were both born in Russia
I am white.</p>

<p>My letters of Recommendation will be from my English teacher and Math teacher.
I plan to study mechanical engineering, Business management and Computer science.</p>

<p>My issues are that i do not have an even close enough SAT score to compete with other applicants.
As for my essays, ive been working on them for a while now and I think i made them as best as possible.
Let me know if you need more information.</p>

2

<p>Out of reach due to OOS status and low SAT. If you are international(not sure but seems like one) who needs FA, the chance is zero. </p>

3

<p>Very few students become National AP Scholars before senior year, and you have an interesting story. I think you definitely have a shot. I hope you’re also applying to Virginia Tech and other backups such as Virginia Commonwealth just in case. </p>

4

<p>I am in state.</p>

5

<p>You’re from NoVA, and you will be subjected to the unofficial NoVA quota. I’ve seen kids from NoVA with 2300 SATs not make UVA. It’s a crapshoot. I’d say you’re 65-70% in. </p>

6

<p>I think you’re actually in pretty good shape. UVA likes test scores to validate GPAs, but they seem to love high grades and course rigor even more than test scores. Your SATs are not particularly high among applicants, but not so low as to eliminate you, either. Your transcript and class rank should receive more weight there than your test scores. The rest of your information looks very good.</p>

<p>Technically, 6/591 is just outside of top 1%. But they’ll still be very pleased with it.</p>

<p>I think you are likely to get in.</p>

7

<p>I stand corrected, if you are from VA,the chance may be better</p>

8

<p>Note the OP is from Northern Virginia. There is a glut of highly qualified applicants from NoVA that they alone can fill a class at UVA. Because of the need to serve the rest of VA, the bar for NoVA students to gain admission to UVA is higher than that for the students from the rest of the state and OOS. UVA needs the OOS students willing to pay full tuition to operate since the state legislature has been very miserly in providing funds to VA state universities.</p>

9

<p>@NoVaDad‌99 that sounds interesting. Mind if you provide me some statistics? I m just curious</p>

10

<p>@paul2752 Please see this: <a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/does-uva-have-a-quota-for-northern-virginia-admissions/2013/11/25/559685ba-557b-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/does-uva-have-a-quota-for-northern-virginia-admissions/2013/11/25/559685ba-557b-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

11

<p>According to UVA Admissions (DeanJ), there is NO quota for NoVa, the ONLY limitation they are given is to put together an entering class that is 2/3 Virginians, 1/3 OOS. I have no reason to doubt her veracity.</p>

<p>UVA already has one of the largest endowments for a public school anywhere, and is run very close to a private school funding model. State Appropriation is only 10% of the academic budget. <a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/finance101/answers.html#budget-income”>http://www.virginia.edu/finance101/answers.html#budget-income&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Do you have any solid numbers to back up your assertion that, “the bar for NoVA students to gain admission to UVA is higher than that for the students from the rest of the state and OOS”? Because as far as I can find, the same standards of test scores and class rank seem to apply equally across the state, and Virginians clearly have a LOWER bar to reach than OOS applicants. </p>

<p>The WaPo article you link to does not include any hard data supporting your assertion on this subject. In fact, it contradicts it and indicates that NoVa applicants are accepted at pretty much the same rates as statewide: “The acceptance rate for in-state students is about 40 percent, compared to about 20 percent for out-of-state students, McCance said. According to data maintained by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, the acceptance rate in 2012-2013 for Fairfax (which had 2,248 applicants) was 41 percent, for Loudoun (which had 678 applicants) was 36 percent, for Prince William County (which had 433 applicants) was 35 percent, and for Arlington (which had 298 applicants) was 41 percent.”</p>

<p>They mention that Lynchburg City had 35/70 admissions, but that is not a large enough sample to be statistically significant.</p>

<p>The University does break down where the in state students come from, and they are already accepting an overwhelming number from NoVa, primarily Fairfax County. <a href=“http://avillage.web.virginia.edu/iaas/instreports/studat/dd/enrl_city.htm”>http://avillage.web.virginia.edu/iaas/instreports/studat/dd/enrl_city.htm&lt;/a&gt; The numbers seem roughly proportional to the populations in each city/county, which is about what we should expect. Fairfax County actually seems to be overrepresented already.</p>

12

<p>Here is a discussion I found from 2006. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/180992-sat-scores-for-uva.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/180992-sat-scores-for-uva.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>Speculation and a handful of anecdotal examples, and it still supports my understanding: that your GPA and class rank in your own school are more important than test scores, and that the University pretty much draws proportionally to population from across the state.</p>

<p>Go to the University’s own statistics on where the students are from. Add up how many are from NoVa (Fairfax/Loudoun/Prince William/Arlington Counties, Falls Church/Fairfax/Manassass/Alexandria Cities); divide by student population to see what proportion of students are from NoVa. Then grab the most recent census data and see what proportion of the the state’s population is from the same counties and cities. If you find a significant discrepancy between the two proportions, call the Washington Post, because that’s a news story.</p>

<p>If the University is simply taking the best 40% or so of applications from each school district in the state, that’s not a news story, and it’s not discriminating against NoVa.</p>

14

<p>The original point was the OP, while possessing good stats, will be competing against other NoVA students of similar caliber for the limited seats allotted for NoVA students. Nothing you’ve said contradicts that.</p>

15

<p>I’m explicitly contradicting the assertion that there is some admission handicap that is particular to NoVa. </p>

<p>Hampton Roads applicants are competing against other Hampton Roads applicants for the “limited” seats allotted for Hampton Roads students. And likewise Richmond, and Blacksburg, and the eastern peninsula, and the extreme southwest, &c. And as the above post shows, NoVa actually gets disproportionately <em>more</em> admissions than their population would predict, so being from NoVa is actually more advantageous than being from some random location in the state (although I suspect this has a lot to do with both applications and matriculation being from self-selecting pools).</p>

<p>The “limit” appears to be nothing more than being at or near the op of your HS class, according to your grades and course rigor. This is obviously not a problem at all for the OP.</p>

16

<p>I did a little research… </p>

<p>Defining NoVa as (Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, Arlington County, Fairfax City, Falls Church City, Manassass City, Manassass Park City, Alexandria City)</p>

<p>For 2012 (most recent year I found data)
Population of Virginia: 8,186,628
Population of NoVa: 2,347,256 (28.7% of state)
(source: <a href=“http://www.us-places.com/Virginia/Virginia.htm”>http://www.us-places.com/Virginia/Virginia.htm&lt;/a&gt;)</p>

<p>For 2013-2014 first year students at UVA:
IS total 3800 admitted / 8912 applied, 42.6%, 2331 entered (61.3% yield)
NoVa 1751 / 4312, 40.6%, 1057 entered (60.4% yield)
OOS 4971 / 20,157, 24.7%, 1244 entered (25.0% yield)
(source: <a href=“Higher Ed Info for Virginia”>Higher Ed Info for Virginia)</p>

<p>NoVa placed 1057 / 2331 entering students, so 45.3% of the entering IS students were from NoVa.
4312 / 8912 applications, 48.4% of IS applications were from NoVa!</p>

<p>I think 40.6% admission rate, compared to statewide 42.6%, and 45.3% of entering students, compared to 48.4% of IS applications, is not significant. To me, it simply suggests that some more students farther down in their class rankings are submitting applications.</p>

<p>I think 45.3% of entering IS students, 48.4% of IS applications, coming from an area having 28.7% of the state population, is VERY significantly disproportional. We’re talking 50% higher than expected.</p>

<p>For some reason, NoVa students are simply far more likely to <em>apply</em> to UVA than students from anywhere else in Virginia are.</p>

17

<p>I am actually from NOVA so I will give you some insight based on my school’s naviance and a larger anecdotal evidence sample than the handful of CC NOVA kids that post on the UVA thread. I strongly and firmly believe that if you are from NOVA, UVA looks closely at your school rigor to put everything in context. If you go to TJ/Mclean/Langley, a 4.0 weighted GPA is not impressive because at least 100-200 kids in the graduating class may have at least that. At my NOVA school, we have maybe 30 or so kids out of a huge class with above a 4.0. We consistently have kids with 4.0-4.2 GPAs and 1700-1900 SATs being accepted because that is awesome for my school. At other schools, like TJ, I know of 2300s and 4.3s rejected.</p>

<p>It’s all about context. I go to an IB school and we can’t take IB classes before our junior year, so our GPAs tend to be considerably lower than those of AP schools where I have seen many kids take at least 4 AP classes before they even start junior year. Also, a lot of IB SL classes are not given the full 1.0 boost because the county deems it not as rigorous as an AP class. This is in comparison to schools like TJ where even regular classes are given GPA boosts because the county sees it as more advanced. So is it fair that a 4.1 kid from my school gets accepted whereas a 4.3 kid from TJ gets rejected? Maybe. It’s definitely not UNfair. </p>

<p>For SATs, the average at my school is around 1550 and the average at TJ is about 2200 and I think between 1800-1900 for Langley and Mclean. This is why a 1900 at my school is considered beyond awesome, and the admissions office understands this. At these other schools, you are merely average or below average with a 1900.</p>

<p>To OP, this is why I don’t like chance me threads for UVA from NOVA schools. The problem (well not really a problem since this is a good thing) is that UVA is so familiar with NOVA schools that there isn’t an across the board methodology for how to make admissions decisions. Unless we know your school (and please don’t post that private information in this public thread, but you can PM me if you want to talk more about your chances), we can’t give you an educated response about your chances. </p>

<p>Also I love the statistics that FCCDAD came up with. If you read Dean J’s blog, she says multiple times that there are no NOVA quotas and she can admit every single student from NOVA if she’d like. I would be less concerned about a NOVA quota and more concerned about a quota for your school. </p>

<p>Also, being first generation to go to college in America is not considered first generation in the college admissions process. If your parents have degrees, you are not first gen. I know that this quite unfortunate because there is a huge difference. A degree from a school abroad can be worthless in America so it isn’t really the same thing at all, but that’s how the college process works. </p>