I Picked UVA Over...

<p>@Panserbjorne…you want to go to WashU really badly but you were waitlisted, in what is WashU better at than UVA? Business? Law? Engineering? Languages?</p>

<p>Panserbjorne…a bit confused – what is so “ironic” about beyond_stressed’s comment? Not trying to be nosey, just a bit confused by your terminology.</p>

<p>Also, forgot to post WHY D ultimately chose UVA:</p>

<p>Trinity --much too small
Pepperdine – beautiful and rather large scholarship was tempting, but she thought it was too small and just a tad too conservative
Wake – too small
UNC – much too large
BC Honors – couldn’t stand the mandated seminar class/curriculum; wanted a Greek system
Northwestern – VERY tough decision; great school, but ultimately, she thought it was a bit “too nerdy”. Also, a bit too cutthroat for her major. She feels her GPA will be higher at UVa and thus, med school will be easier to get into
UVA – BEST blending of both social/academic opportunities. Great school spirit and beautiful campus. Drawbacks: Concerns about being OOS, dorms leave much to be desired and few live on campus all four years, size (larger than what she initially wanted), a bit worried about funding in the midst of economy (UNC and UVA were only public schools she applied to)</p>

<p>Duke, UNC, Wake, W&M, Boston College, UMiami!
I picked UVA for pretty much the reasons everyone already mentioned haha. I am in love with it and SO excited for the fall!</p>

<p>jc40, this might alleviate your concern about funding - I forget if I heard it at Days on the Lawn or if I read it online, but I believe only 8% of UVA’s funding comes from the state of Virginia, with the rest being drawn from the $3.5 billion endowment.</p>

<p>@jc40</p>

<p>Is UNC actually larger than UVA? Wikipedia listed UNC’s campus size as 729 acres vs. UVA’s 1682.</p>

<p>Oneguy…I was referring to the number of undergraduate students, not the physical size of the campus. (UVA = 14,297; UNC = 17,981)</p>

<p>@jc40: I wanted to go to Brown U. :(</p>

<p>@wahoomb: sciences, specifically planetary, they didn’t take anybody from the wait list, JHU is my next choice but still haven’t heard anything from them, basically no hope anyways</p>

<p>BU: Didn’t get good enough aid
Syracuse: It was one of my safeties so…</p>

<p>Panser,</p>

<p>Are planetary sciences really a legit field nowadays? I’ve always thought astronomy was an outdated field of study, since it was largely superseded by astrophysics and cosmology. And if you plan on pursuing those studies in grad school, physics should be your focus in undergrad.</p>

<p>Anyway, from what I understand, UVA has a pretty good astronomy program (first uni in the country to offer programs in it).</p>

<p>I turned down NYU, Boston College, U Chicago, Notre Dame, Carnegie Mellon, and Fordham.
I really like all the schools I applied to, but UVA was an easy choice because of the reputation of the Political Science/History departments (which are the department in which I hope to double major). I actually haven’t been able to visit UVA yet, but everyone I know who’s been there has absolutely loved it, so I can’t wait to get on campus. UVA just had the best academics and is in my opinion the perfect size.</p>

<p>yes it is, the study of planets is a legit field, and astronomy is not outdated, it is in fact becoming the “golden age” with new sensors and telescopes being built. True, grad school will be much more important for me. But I don’t really want to study astronomy as much, I applied as a astro major at UVA, but there is not very much to do with astronomy, with planetary science you can actually study places we might go to one day. also it’s not good enough to have been the first university to offer astronomy if you are not any good now. not that the department is trash, allot of the faculty are highly qualified, but that goes to show that astro majors rather go to schools like cornell and others, not uva</p>

<p>My boyfriend a while back was preparing for an astro-physics program, and I remember him looking at Cornell and some of the west coast schools as some of the real shining stars in the field (haha…pun totally intended). UVA wasn’t bad and he knew grad school would be more important, but he knew there were much stronger schools than UVA for undergrad too. (He ended up going to UVA but then switching to Math and Philosophy-go figure).</p>

<p>Oh, and I chose UVA over UNC-CH and Clemson (only 3 schools I applied to for transfer). I didn’t like UNC’s campus and they only offered me 10k/year for financial aid (low income out-of-state). Clemson turned out to be a bit too rural for me and offered no aid. UVA gave me 26k/year. UVA was my first choice since I was a HS freshman, but I never had competitive test scores for OOS and EC’s weren’t stellar.</p>

<p>Turned down: Duke, UNC, Notre Dame, Cornell, Wake, NC State. Merit $ and/or honors offered at four of those institutions
But that was 3 years ago. UVA is one of the best decisions of my life!</p>

<p>Turned down BC (Honors);Villanova (Merit $);BU ($$);GW;Penn State-UVA was one of my top choices, no contest</p>

<p>Northwestern
Wash U. in St. Louis
Wake Forest
Bucknell
Univ. of Richmond
Tulane (80k)
waitlisted at Vandy, didn’t pursue it</p>

<p>UVA was my first choice to begin with…how can anyone say no to UVA…</p>

<p>I turned down:</p>

<p>UCLA (got a good scholarship, but life is just too fast there and California’s too far away)
UCSD (too far)
University of Michigan (weather)
Wake Forest (not sure why)
Trinity (too small)
University of Kentucky (adderall abuse, campus feels claustrophobic)
Centre College (too small)
University of Chicago (not sure why)
Case Western (not a very safe campus)</p>

<p>I don’t know how I feel about UVA. My sibling’ll be attending with me so it won’t be so bad. I enjoyed the campus, but I don’t know how I’ll fare without my parents. That’s always rough; but I’m blessed to have gotten accepted to such a splendorous school.</p>

<p>With the “Why did you Reject UVA” thread on the board and May 1st rapidly nearing, I wanted to revitalize this thread and see where the '15 class was accepted and why they ultimately chose UVa. It’s really interesting (to me anyway) to see the patterns.</p>

<p>I was the second one to post, and it was a year ago :o.</p>

<p>But, Notre Dame, UMich, USC, FSU (full ride), BC, and others that I don’t recall. (I’ll update later)</p>

<p>I would have turned down Tulane, Truman State, Wesleyan, Middlebury ($), and Emory for UVa, and I might have turned down Vanderbilt and Rice, but UVa isn’t going to have a financial aid package on time and as a QuestBridge student I can’t afford for that to happen.</p>