Hi Everyone! My daughter was nominated by her high school to apply to UVA for a full ride scholarship. We are in Florida. Her stats is #1 in class, 1460 SAT and a weighted GPA of 8.24 and unweighted 4.0. She did a ton of dual enrollment classes which explains her GPA. I have a few questions about UVA
Her Uncle and cousin went to UVA. Any connection to being a legacy?
She took Spanish 1 and 2 honors in middle school. Took Spanish 1 and 2 at the community college. And has taken American sign language 1 and 2 at the community college. Is that enough language?
Can you apply undecided major and have a chance? or do you need to declare.
UVA only gives the legacy tip to alumni children applying from OOS. So the uncle and cousin won’t do anything for your kid, other than perhaps provide some material for a Why UVA? essay.
That SAT is pretty low for UVA OOS. When applying to UVA, you need to pay attention to the stats for the OOS pool (which differs materially from the stats for the IS pool and the overall pool). See link below.
In the last cycle, OOS was a 19% admit rate with a middle SAT range of 1430-1540. Once you back out all of the OOS legacy admits (which is a size-able piece of the OOS pool), the stats for non-legacies would be tougher/higher.
Last, UVA just started doing ED for this cycle. Hard to say how that is going to work for sure. But logic says that UVA ED is targeted at OOS applicants with good or better stats because ED is all about increasing yield. UVA has struggled to enroll the very high stat non-legacy OOS applicants it offers – because those kids will also be getting admitted to a lot of other very attractive selective schools.
So it might be worth considering applying to UVA ED if that is otherwise for your kid and family. Also might be worth thinking about trying to boost the SAT score.
Your daughter has a good profile, congratulations.
Does your D have any hooks such as URM? Pell grant eligible? Her 1460 is above the 25%ile for OOS students…which by the way includes international students as well.
What are her EBRW and Math scores? UVA evaluates holistically–so GPA and test scores are important, but also course rigor, number of core courses, level of math completed, essays, and rec letters all play a role. UVA requires 2 years of FL (recommends 5), so that is satisfied but is light…really what many schools mean is that they want 3-4 years of the same language (I have not seen 5 recommended elsewhere, as UVA does in their common data set). Does your D meet the other requirements/recommendations?
This link (for class of 2022, 2023 not yet available) shows you the acceptance rate by school (UVA admits by school, but not by major). You can cut the data many ways…by school, gender, OOS (again includes international), etc. https://ias.virginia.edu/university-stats-facts/undergraduate-admissions
Have you run the net price calculator to see if UVA would be affordable (the scholarship will be highly competitive)?
Congrats to your daughter for being nominated a Jefferson Scholar. That is a great honor. The scholarship itself is viewed completely separate from admissions and is handled by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation. OOS is a tough admit at UVA for sure but no reason not to try.
Certainly have her pursue the scholarship. It’s a very cool experience. S went through that a few years ago and although he didn’t get the scholarship, it was great practice for interviewing with accomplished adults. Depending on the size of your region, they will invite certain nominees to a mixer and an interview. Typically one student moves on, so the best of the best, per the foundation, in your region.
Thank you again for your help. Yes it is the Jefferson Scholarship. I agree it would be a great experience. In Florida we do a core gpa for public universities. Her 8.24 changes to 4.925 out of 5.0. Another issue for us is she has over 100 college credits she could transfer but I’m sure UVA will not want any of them. Lol. She needs to decide what she wants to do. She will take all your comments to heart. Thank you!
We are also in FL. A bit on the Jefferson Scholarship experience - Our region had something like 60 schools. They narrowed it down to about 30 and invited them to a mixer (with parents). Think of it as a cocktail party without cocktails. The foundations’ trustees mingled with the kids, they gave a presentation about UVA, etc. The trustees were all quite successful individuals; partners in law firms, bankers, authors, etc. I was quite amazed at how much detail they knew about the kids. Several of them came up to my son and said, “So you’re the kid who did X or wrote about y”. Very cool and important way to ease the nerves of these kids as that weekend they all had panel interviews in the board room of one of the Trustees’ law firm downtown. So a panel of successful adults will be interviewing your daughter and gauging who she is (not just grades, but leadership, community, passions, etc. )
Anecdotally, the first question they asked my son was to describe his favorite vacation. He said, “That’s easy, my first trip to Fenway Park” as he’s a huge Red Sox fan. The panel leader deadpanned him and said, “this isn’t going to go well as I used to work for the Steinbrenners in the Yankee organization”. Fortunately he laughed after a lengthy pause.
It’s that type of thing. Very good practice for the future.