The Office of Undergraduate Admissions at Virginia Tech is bringing some exciting changes to the upcoming application cycle. Because there may be conversations about this process on College Confidential, we want to help applicants avoid confusion by contributing as much as we can.
Guidelines:
Who: This account will be monitored by multiple representatives from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. We will be sure to sign our names to individual posts.
What we will do: We will share public updates and chime in when we notice false or misleading information. This account will not address every post, but whenever possible we will try to correct misinformation.
What we will not do: We will not respond to ‘chance me’ posts or hypothetical situations, or speak in detail about specific applicants. To protect the privacy of students, we encourage you to call or email our office instead. Our office phone line is 540-231-6267 and our office email is admissions@vt.edu
We are honored that you are considering Virginia Tech and we are looking forward to interacting with you and hosting AMAs throughout the cycle!
– Juan Espinoza, Assistant Vice Provost and Interim Director of Undergraduate Admissions
With the new changes, what recommendations do you have to be a successful transfer student into VT Fall 2019? What are the top things you look for to admit a transfer student (non-engineering)?
Hello - Is it possible for a entering freshman student with 38 AP credits(I know that is the maximum permissible) to finish bachelors(Engineering) in 3 years if he/she exactly knows which engineering major he wants to do?
Are there students in the past that have accomplished this?
Hello. Quick question about your admissions process for new freshman. The Coalition App only allows for one choice of major, with no second choice. If VT does not feel the applicant is the right fit for their choice of major but feels the applicant is right for the university, will the applicant be accepted to another major? Maybe University Studies or Exploring Technology?
@SoaringBird the most competitive transfer students will be taking coursework in line with the major they wish to pursue and earning a 3.0 or higher GPA. Following the guaranteed admissions agreements with the Virginia Community College System is also good advice, as they are the only “guarantees” to admission.
@eager2019 that is possible if credits and coursework align appropriately. There isn’t any data readily available on this scenario.
@stem2017 applicants will only be considered for one major. There is no longer a second choice option, nor any reconsiderations for different majors.
Regards,
Alphonso Garrett, Director of Undergraduate Diversity Recruitment Initiatives
@VTAdmissions
Hi my son submitted his application and SRAR today. Does he still need to send official SAT scores from collegeboard or will you just use the self reported scores from the SRAR?
@VTadmissions - My son applied to VT on August 1st and filled the SRAR out within 7 days. He has not received any email confirmation about his application being received or log-in information for checking status of application. When will he receive that and be able to check the application status?
Also, when trying to link the SRAR, it asks for “ID” - assume this is his Coalition ID? Not the Order ID Code that is given after submitting the Coalition Application?
The VT website says that if VT is the only school you are applying to, you can skip many sections on the Coalition app since VT is using the SRAR. This seems clear enough. However, does a student still complete the SRAR for VT when he has already filled in all of this information on the Coalition App (because, for instance, he is applying to more than one school through the Coalition App). This does not seem clear on the website.
I’m disappointed with the deletion of the second choice major option for new applicants. This is a huge departure from how things have been done in the past. This really only hurts the kids that love VT and know they want to go there. They now have to risk everything is they think they are interested in engineering. Meanwhile, the kids applying to 10 engineering schools won’t bat an eye, but they may have no specific interest in VT except that they saw rankings. What a shame. It’s like you are saying to kids, ‘if you aren’t good enough for engineering we don’t want you’
I agree with your assessment @rbc2018. Further, applying University Studies (undecided) is no guarantee either. I was informed that after engineering, US is the second most popular ‘major.’ Transition to Coalition App won’t help the situation.
I will encourage my DS to apply to one of the ‘exploring’ majors. He wants VT more than he wants engineering. We’ll do what we need to to get him in the door and go from there.
@STEM2017 – Exactly. It works against their core constituency that is loyal to Virginia Tech. I’m sensing an interest in their part in shifting the engineering applicant pool to the ‘high flyers’ that can help them beef up their stats. But most of those applicants have no connection or sense of community to VT.
I also believe that other departments in VT that would normally enjoy getting students who perhaps just fell short of engineering but are still strong applicants will miss out with this new model (those students will be rejected, period, instead of funneled into other disciplines). It all strikes me as a short-term orientation.
@rbc2018 tbh I’m pretty sure plenty of majors are not exactly thrilled at having lots of people enter their department who are just gunning to leave it. It was quite annoying to read 1/3 of the “why did you choose this major” paragraphs from our new freshmen in my major that read “so I can transfer to engineering”. There are also plenty of people who come in wanting to switch into engineering, spin their wheels for like 2 years and then have to switch to whatever nonrestricted major they can thatll get them out in a reasonable amount of time.
I’m not sure why it would be assumed that engineering applicants have more of a connection or sense of community to VT than applicants into the other colleges there? Do I have this wrong, or weren’t kids who applied in past years under all other majors besides Engineering and Architecture “risking everything if they think they were interested in ______” since they didn’t have the option of a 2nd choice fall back major?
Data would be interesting to see re: the old system showing a.) how many CoE apps declined offer of 2nd major and went elsewere, and b.) of those who accepted offer of 2nd major how many attempted transfer back to CoE (and any trend as to what majors attempted transfer most vs. least). Just a guess, but I suspect those admitted to say, Business as 2nd choice may attempt transfer less than those admitted to Univ Studies as 2nd choice. So for instance, the school may have decided that it wants to beef up it’s Univ Studies program by making it more available to students who really want to study that curriculum vs. those who were using it as a pitstop on the way to engineering school.
@ShenVal18 – the standards to get into the engineering program are significantly higher than most other majors, so it is more of an all or nothing risk than applying to other things. That’s just reality. VT has already made it nearly impossible to transfer into engineering from other majors, so it seems to me they could still allow a second choice major but make it clear to those applicants that it is not a pathway to engineering. I believe this change will deter kids from applying to engineering who know they want to go to VT. It won’t deter kids who are applying to lots of engineering schools.
I’ve been talking about these changes with several VT engineering profs I know, I’m not just pulling these ideas out of the air.
I think I’ll have to respectfully disagree with your position on risk. I would opine that if there is not a 2nd major choice for any/all programs, then the risk is the same/relative. Stats/standards don’t play a role in “you’re either in or you’re out”.
I’m not sure it would be realistic for a university to offer a 2nd major option that’s conditional on not being allowed to change major (or more specifically not be allowed to request transfer into CoE). It would be interesting to see the results of that though. My guess is that if you had 2 boxes to check on the application [a.) apply CoE and include 2nd choice major with acknowledgment that applicant cannot transfer into CoE, or b.) CoE only], you could likely see a lot fewer that selected option a vs. prior years and that Hokie_gl32’s comments re: the number of 2nd majors chosen with no intent to pursue that program rang true.
I can understand the concern though. Two of my son’s classmates (one is roommate) would not have been admitted under the new system.
Several of the colleges that my DS is applying to have a second choice major. (U Del, Arizona State, Clemson, Stevens Tech, U Miami, Loyola MD). Even Georgia Tech (who VT would consider a peer) asks for one major choice but does not accept students into a major - they just want to know what your thinking.
I think the bigger point here is that VT will either accept the student to their only choice or reject them outright. Many other schools (those without a second choice) won’t necessarily reject the student but accept them into an ‘undecided’ spot. This happened to my DS17 for three different schools, U Maryland and Penn St, for example.
Is it reasonable to ask 17 year-olds to choose a specific major and thus a career at this point in their lives? For sure, some kids know exactly what they want, but I would argue that most 17/18 year-olds are unsure.
My DS19 can probably handle the VT engineering program but doesn’t have strong enough stats to ensure acceptance. As stated earlier, he wants VT more than he wants engineering, so I will advise him to apply ‘exploring.’
If your desire is to be an engineer, you are best served by starting in engineering in an engineering school. Firsly, engineering requires a specific course sequence and has many fundamental science, lab, and interdisciplinary engineering courses in the first two years. If you do not start out in an engineering major and you do not plan your courses carefully, some of them may not be credited towards the engineering major and it will be a challenge to graduate in four years. If V-Tech and others play this game of accepting a student into a general studies type major and then later have to reapply competitively to the engineering major (with no certainty of being accepted into the major), I would avoid them. Go to a school that accepts you as an engineering major from Day 1. Stevens by the way requires the student to declare the broad major or school to which he/she will apply (engineering, science, business, humanities/arts, etc.) initially, but you do not have to decide the engineering specialization (e.g., electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, etc.) until the second year, before the discipline-specific courses begin. If Stevens accepts you as an engineering major, you are guaranteed to be admitted to the engineering school and you will have the choice of a specific engineering major. This IMO is really how all schools should operate if they are being honest with their students. Accepting more freshman than they know they have the capacity for in the engineering majors with the intent of downselecting the cohort later is dishonest IMO.