A lot of other applicants got their decisions today, and it doesn’t seem to follow a specific pattern. There are acceptances all over the place from each college, and with a variety of GPA’s and test scores. Someone I know got theirs today, but I didn’t. She wrote the same amount of essays as I did, her SAT and GPA are the same (GPA within 0.03 and SAT within 10 points) and we both applied to engineering. She attends the same high school, and our transcripts and test scores were received WELL before January 1st. Why did some people get theirs and some didn’t? What was the deciding factor?
We both also submitted the application on January 14th.
No one can really tell you with certainty what the determinations are. Maybe it’s one of these things: financial need, gender, race, first generation. Or more likely it’s something to do with course load and preparation. Within a hs, they will look to see who took the most challenging courses (usually in the math and sciences). So, two people with the same GPA and scores can seem very different to VT based on the courses they took.
It could be as simple as where your name falls in the alphabet and what was able to be reviewed before committee meetings. While it is nice they release some decisions early, it does add in many instances unneeded stress and worry to many that do not hear early. Hang in there.
This happened to me when I applied as well, I lived near someone who was also applying and we did all our stuff together, including mailing things together. I ended up doing a work study in admissions for a little while and found that even if some things arrive in the admissions office on the same day, it may not get opened or filed at the same time as something else. Some admissions counselors also get through their applications faster than others, so it also depends on who gets your application, which is pretty random.
There is no pattern and it has nothing to do with whether one applicant is stronger than another. I think VT just tosses the applications into a digital pile and then randomly picks out some for review. It’s nice that VT sends out acceptances before the specified date but it causes unnecessary stress to the applicants that have not heard.