<p>OK, here's a question that's been nagging me and it's probably impolite to ask but I'll do it anyway. A neighbor of mine has a D who went to Thomas Jefferson HS (ranked the #1 the country) in Northern Virginia, and who now attending UVA. She commented that because endowments and scholarships at the varoius prestige colleges and universities have taken a hit due to the downturn in the economy there have been a LOT more TJ kids who are being forced to consider the state schools, notably WM and UVA, than in previous years. From my perspective, it's discouraging enough to know more than 25% of the incoming freshmen at the two "biggies" will come from OOS to help pay to run the places (and help "keep things competitive") but I fear that the NoVa kids who attend regular high schools now have to further compete with the TJ kids for the NoVa slots at these schools as well, or do they? How does UVA (or WM for that matter) handle TJ applicants? </p>
<p>I asked this very question at various college fairs last year and everyone assured me that they take everything into consideration, whatever that means. So, do the more competive VA universities lump TJ applicants in with everybody else in the NoVa applicant pool, or are they considered their own category?</p>
<p>There are no quotas for counties, towns, or regions. The number of students who apply from your school or any other has no affect on your application review. I’ve addressed this here and on my blog in the past. There’s a lot of bad information out there.</p>
<p>The only mandate is that 2/3 of the student body at UVa must have Virginia residency. Where did you get the 25% figure?</p>
<p>Going to TJ isn’t exactly a gold stamp. It’s very good at some things but not so good at others. It’s E-School for High Schoolers and means certain sacrifices. I really wouldn’t worry about it at all.</p>
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<p>I love UVA and I’ll always be grateful for my time here. We have a lot of pride and that’s one of the things I love about the University. I’ve spent a great deal of time in small backwaters across the state and wherever I go UVA always garners respect. Virginians really take a sense of ownership and pride in way they wouldn’t for a private institution. We’re a state school in the best sense of the word. The University draws on students from across the state, from all walks of life, with all sorts of passions.</p>
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<p>The out state students add a lot to the school. They tend to be a little more worldly and perhaps a bit more qualified. We gain a great deal from having them. They do far more than just subsidize our educations.</p>
<p>Dean J! Hello! I’ve just started reading your blog but haven’t gone through every entry. I went back to the WaPo article of 1/29/11 and now realize that I misinterpreted the stats. My error. </p>
<p>But playing around with the Naviance stats suggested by hazelorb was a useful exercise. I compared UVA’s TJ admit percentages for 2009 (TJ) and my D’s NoVa HS (2010) and it was roughly 70% vs 45% (using #admit/#applied x 100), with a similar average GPA but significantly higher average SATs for the TJ applicants. For actual UVA enrollment from the admits, I got 44% TJ, 60% D’s school. </p>
<p>So how to interpret the numbers? For NoVa at least, I guess it all sort of evens out. I suppose if there were no TJ those kids would still get in to UVA but it would be buried in the stats of the various local high schools. The numbers also tell me that TJ is not quite a “golden ticket" to admittance. </p>
<p>Ah well. Time to move on to worrying about something else.</p>
<p>Volt123…I know many more students who come from fairly well off families (unlike mine) who are now going to state schools vice OOS schools where they would have gone to in the past. This includes Dr’s kids in the mix. The reason is obvious, cash. You look at schools like UVA and WM and you have to ask yourself is the education really worth close to triple the cost at some other place? Yeah they all tell you “don’t worry about the cost we give great financial aid” but what they mean is a Loan not a grant that you are saddled with for many years, If your parents make more than 100K you can forget about it unless you have a bunch of kids in college now. That’s one of the main reasons the standards go up every year for out state schools.</p>
<p>With regard to TJ, believe it or not some people from that school feel like they are discriminated against because all of the students are brilliant and if youre not extra brilliant UVA will not take you. There are argument is teh revesre of yours, its harder to get in becaues they are at TJ!</p>
<p>My older brother went to TJ and was waitlisted at UVA (He applied to the Engineering school, though, so I don’t know if that makes a difference?), so everyone is right…its reallly not a golden stamp. I think the thing is that SO many TJ kids apply compared to a normal school, and most of them are completely brilliant. My brother had a 3.8 or something, I think, but that was with no weighting (They didn’t weight when he was there, maybe they do now) while other kids from his class had higher. He was also taking Multivariable Calculus (sounds crazy to me, I guess not to him) and took bunches of APS, and did 2 varsity sports. I think his SATs were on the high side of average (21 something) , but his essays weren’t so great. It all depends, I guess.</p>