<p>I believe there have been threads on this topic but can't find them. As I recall, UVa is one of those schools where EA is just as competitive as RD. Does anyone have the stats from last year?</p>
<p>My understanding is there is no difference in admissions difficulty in the end between early vs. regular, at UVa. (That situation is very different at many universities, including some where binding early decision is much much easier than the regular round)</p>
<p>Some UVa applicants are deferred for a decision from the early round to the regular round. The key factor in that case often becomes mid-year high school grades. In that case, keeping up your high school grades becomes critical.</p>
<p>If your application is ready, there is no reason not to submit EA for UVa. However, don’t rush to submit early if your essays are not up to snuff or if you are convinced you will be able to substantially bring up your grades and test scores or receive better recommendations with a couple more months of time.</p>
<p>My understanding is also that if the application is not clearly admit or deny, they defer it to the RD pool. Some deferred applications eventually get admitted, some eventually get denied, and some even get waitlisted (which must be particularly annoying, to want an Early result and still not have anything definite either way by graduation!).</p>
<p>Based on the deferred applications that get reviewed a second time, it is clear that the bar for admission is higher in EA and the bar for denial is lower in EA. The only real difference is that the deferred applications are being compared to the main body of RD applications instead of the other EA applications the second time around.</p>
<p>DeanJ released the stats from last year on her blog. About 48% of all applications were EA, and about 51% of all admission offers went out in the EA round. Apparently they took very few from the waitlist this year. The yield among IS admissions is much higher than OOS, which is why they must make so many more OOS admission offers to fill half as many seats. Their targets were to get 3,570 first year students matriculating, 2,380 Virginians and 1,190 OOS applicants.</p>
<p>Total:
31,042 completed applications (7.1% increase over last year), 8,972 accepted (28.9%).
IS: 9,014 applications (2.0% increase over last year), 3,903 accepted (43.3%)
OOS: 22,028 applications (9.3% increase over last year), 5,069 accepted (23.0%)</p>
<p>EA:
14,819 completed EA applications, 4,590 accepted (31.0%), 3,771 deferred to RD (25.4%), 6458 denied (43.6%)
IS: 4,027 completed EA applications
OOS: 10,792 completed EA applications</p>
<p>But we don’t know how many were IS vs OOS of the 4,590 were accepted EA, correct?</p>
<p>All from Dean J’s blog:</p>
<p>"Early Action Applications
Total number of Early Action applications: 14,819
Total number of VA apps: 4,027
Total number of OOS apps: 10,792
We use completed application numbers in our statistics. There are schools that include incomplete applications in their stats.</p>
<p>Early Action Offers
Overall offers: 4,590
Total VA offers: 2,057 (51.1% offer rate)
Total OOS offers: 2,533 (23.5% offer rate)
Enrollment goal: 3,570 (between EA and RD)
*Schools admit more students than the enrollment goal with yield in mind.Yield is how many students accept an offer of admission. Check out yield from past years, broken down by residency (these numbers are for the entire applicant pool, not just early action). </p>
<p>Early Action Defers
Overall defers: 3,771
Total VA defers: 920
Total OOS defers: 2,851
Some applicants will withdraw, so these numbers will go down."</p>
<p>There really doesn’t appear to be any admissions help/hurt to applying early at UVA. Which is very unlike schools that give a serious admissions boost to early appliers – especially the big ED schools. </p>
<p>The admission rates seem to be a bit higher in UVA’s EA round. But that’s most likely a reflection that the EA pool is a bit stronger – kids who are ready to go and who are not thinking about whether to wait to include one more semester of good grades or one more try at the SATs.</p>
<p>Is there any published legacy data you’re aware of?
Thanks</p>
<p>The only legacy stat (from a few years ago) I have ever seen is that legacies made up 14% of a recent class. Can’t tell whether that is counting just OOS legacies or all legacies. I’ve always assumed that legacies are a big chunk of the OOS enrollment, but I’ve not seen data indicating how big. </p>
<p>Not sure we came to conclusion here. Is EA more difficult or as difficult as RD?</p>
<p>Same. UVA explicitly says that there’s no admissions difference/advantage to applying EA. </p>
<p>If you look at the stats, you will see that the acceptance rates have been a little higher in the EA round. But that likely means that the pool is somewhat stronger EA – kids who have it all together already and are not trying to improve their application with one more semester of grades or one more sitting for the SAT. </p>
<p>As so many have already stated, it’s the same review process regardless of when you reply. Submit when you feel you have a strong application. :)</p>
<p><a href=“Notes from Peabody: The UVA Application Process: The Best Time to Apply to UVa”>http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-best-time-to-apply-to-uva.html</a></p>