<p>Junior here, currently wrestling with SATs trying to get some killer scores for Early Action at UVA next fall. But if I understand correctly, there's not really a point to it outside of saving you the time of applying to other colleges if UVA is your ultimate goal and you get in. If these are true:</p>
<p>-there is no preference for early applicants
-if you are denied early action, you cannot reapply in the spring</p>
<p>Then it seems early applicants are at a disadvantage. From fall through spring people could volunteer more, do more extra curricular, bring up their SATs, and UVA would never see those under any circumstances if you apply for Early Action. Am I grasping this right?</p>
<p>PS: Would UVA be cool with someone who never did a sport in highschool but instead was very involved musically outside of school?</p>
<p>And actually you still have apply to other schools because UVA’s early action decisions do not come out until later in January after the general RD app due date of January 1st.
All you get is an early decision to ease your mind a bit.</p>
<p>First Mamalumper is correct, you absolutely have to apply to a well rounded list of schools prior to hearing an EA decision from UVa in mid to late January.</p>
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<p>Yes and no. When you fill out your Common Application you list your activities and check a box for the year(s) you participated. If you have been involved in volunteer work, tutoring for example, and plan to continue, just check the box for Sr. year. No one applying RD is at an advantage over someone in EA. Assumably your ECs are pretty set by this time and you are just continuing what you’ve been doing. If you are not participating in something Sr. year you had done in previous years, you would of course not check the box for Sr. year.</p>
<p>Regarding higher test scores, I am pretty consistent on this board, and elsewhere. If you are not done testing don’t rush EA. Apply RD and let your first read be with your best scores. You can send scores after EA, it’s not a matter of them ‘not being accepted’ (Dean J explains this on her blog), however if sending scores past the October date your EA submission will probably have had at least a first read without those scores depending on timing. This is a personal decision. I think first impressions are important. With UVa EA if there is any part of your application submission that will show better by waiting past EA on 11/1, regular decision is a better option IMHO.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean there’s no point to EA. If your application submission is ready to go prior to 11/1, everything the best it can be, i’s dotted and t’s crossed, by all means apply EA! Who doesn’t want to get an admission decision earlier?! :)</p>
<p>I think there are many kids (particularly instate) that would love to be one and done. My older kid did ED in 2005 and knew the day before Thanksgiving that he was done. Had he had to wait until January for a decision and had to apply to other schools, he may have ended up elsewhere ( comparing packages , offers from other schools,etc. as he was a very good candidate for top schools). I think UVa may be losing SOME top kids, particularly instate kids, because of not being able to release EA decisions until January.</p>
<p>The other issue is of course the changes in financial aid since 2005 for the top schools. More kids playing the lottery with top schools or looking for merit aid.</p>
<p>Wm & Mary and Virginia Tech still have ED options I believe. I don’t think UVa needs to go back to ED but some kind of EA more in line with other schools might be helpful. Many top schools (which also have many applicants) seem to be able to get decisions out earlier than January. Is there a reason that has been given for not giving EA decisions until January? As is, I do wonder if there is that much point to EA (the question from the OP). Maybe I’m missing something though.</p>
<p>Agree that decisions released mid- December would be more advantageous for students, but the potential for improvement in yield with top candidates is slight, IMHO. Between SCEA at a tippy reach, state school EAs, and early merit deadline schools, a competitive candidate will have completed a lot of applications by mid-December regardless. </p>
<p>Without requiring binding ED, the current process really just helps students spread out essay deadlines and gain one more data point a little early. Time to get excited and feel comfortable, maybe visit before other acceptances muddy the waters.</p>
<p>I still find EA preferable to ED schools such as Duke, which yesterday filled almost half the incoming class.</p>
<p>I think UVa’s yield will be fine, regardless of the EA policy. I just think an earlier decision would help more students when they know they want to go to UVa. There are many students out there where UVa is their clear first choice, particularly for instate students. Others that want to pursue other schools or look for merit aid will keep looking.
Agree that EA remains preferable to ED.</p>
<p>It is really really nice to not have to wait until late March to find out of you are accepted. Particularly if UVa is your first choice and you get accepted in January, you can forget about submitting financial aid materials, etc. to other colleges and scheduling another set of college visits.</p>
<p>However, everyone applying EA to UVa should keep in mind that there is a good chance they may be deferred until a March decision. Therefore, it is essential to keep up your grades and bring up any standardized test scores that are a little week. The main value of UVa waiting until March to make a decision on an applicant is to see how they did on grades during their first half of their senior year. If you get senioritis, it could kill your chances of a second chance in March.</p>
<p>We’d love to notify earlier, but it can’t happen unless we are able to hire more admission officers. It’s impossible for a staff of our size to do a thorough review of 15,000 applications in six weeks. </p>
<p>Those who have a similarly sized pool who complete the review in six weeks probably have more staff, few officers reading each file, or a very different style of reading files.</p>
<p>Dean J, I have no dog in this fight (son has not applied EA to UVA), but perhaps it is because you are one of the few schools that is honest about it. A substantial majority of my son’s friends (and we will know about my son this evening) applied EA to various schools and were deferred. I think the kids deserve something better than Early INaction or Early NONdecision; accept or reject, but except in the rare case where some information has not yet been received, make the call. We tried to teach our kids to RSVP to an invitation in a timely fashion rather than to hold off in case they get a better party to attend; the schools are not modeling good behavior.</p>
<p>I think the EA benefits neither the candidate nor the university. A student can apply ED to a private school and learn their fate before UVA has issued their decision in January. If UVA and another school are the top two choices, applicants will know the answer from both schools sometime in January. </p>
<p>Speaking for our D, she is a legacy who loves UVA. She also likes Stanford. That’s it, that’s the list. Unfortunately she will need to apply to additional schools by 1/1 in case she is rejected/deferred by Stanford and in case she is also rejected by UVA.</p>
<p>This means that good candidates who want to go to UVA are compelled to apply elsewhere. This is bad for the student but equally bad for the university because it will lower the university’s yield.</p>
<p>Good point wherezwallace. If early action is so students, should they get into UVA and have it as their goal school, don’t have to bother scrambling together ~4 other applications… then it is a little ineffective at that.</p>
<p>I would love Early Decision. Maybe then I’d have a decent chance :(</p>
<p>Sometimes ED does give you a higher chance of acceptance: a few schools specifically say so. EA is pointless: but once a few of the good colleges started doing it, they all had to to get the best students.</p>
<p>If EA is pointless, then don’t apply for it. Wait to apply for regular decison. EA lets kids know sooner than they’ve been accepted; if they can afford to go there, they can enroll right away and get better housing, etc. If they need to wait for other schools to compare financial aid packages, then at least they know they got in.</p>
<p>We got so many complaints! I was stunned. After hearing it for a few years, we all brought the early deadlines back. ED wasn’t really in the interest of access (due to the relationship with the financial aid timeline), so EA was put into place.</p>
<p>I loved the years when we had one deadline. I miss leaving the laptop closed on holidays. :)</p>
<p>I discouraged my kids from applying to any university that placed too much emphasis on a binding early decision. Some colleges fill up half of their freshman class with binding early decision, and use it as a trick to artificially lower their acceptance rate and increase their yield rate. </p>
<p>Some students feel forced to enter into a binding early decision process at other universities because it is often much harder to be accepted during the regular cycle. Some students may enter into a binding early decision without having fully considered whether a university is right for them. Just because a college has a prestigious name does not mean that it is right for a student. (My son hated the one Ivy he visited.)</p>
<p>An emphasis on binding early decision shows a lack of respect for the students, and is mainly advantageous to the universities. Too many 17 year olds develop a fuller understanding of what they want to study and what type of college will be a good fit between when they apply and when they make a decision. Having to make a final decision in Sept. or October is pre-mature for many students. </p>
<p>Early action is the best system and is fair to everyone. It lets students wait until May 1 to pick a college, and allows them to apply to as many colleges as they want. It also is beneficial to a college, because it provides additional months for a college to provide additional information and enhanced visit opportunities to their accepted students.</p>
<p>“Then it seems early applicants are at a disadvantage. From fall through spring people could volunteer more, do more extra curricular, bring up their SATs, and UVA would never see those under any circumstances if you apply for Early Action. Am I grasping this right?”</p>
<p>Base Guitar – Probably not. UVA in the past few years has deferred about as many kids from EA as it has EA accepted. So if a kid gets rejected EA (rather than deferred EA), a slightly better SAT score or one more set of semester grades probably wouldn’t have turned that EA rejection into an RD acceptance. Those things more likely could turn an EA defer into an RD accept. </p>
<p>But if you’d write a lousy essay at EA time vs an awesome one at RD time, then apply RD. If you are going to massively improve your SAT score on the next try, then apply RD. But in most cases the outcome isn’t going to be different EA vs RD.</p>
