<p>Don’t be overconfident and have lots of other good alternative colleges. You can’t assume that a certain score will get you admitted to any of the very selective colleges. Also put much effort into your essays.</p>
<p>Given that Pennsylvania has some pretty good state schools and some pretty fantastic private liberal arts school I am surprised that you are wasting more than a few minutes on your UVA application. It is a research university and the quallity of an undergrad education at UVA varies widely depending on major/luck/attitude of student. What are your long term goals? Grad school? UVA does not have as good a record for placement in med, vet or law school as a number of small liberal arts schools in pennsylvania and much, much poorer outcomes for students who eventually seek a PhD. I live in NoVa and, while I recognize that UVA is a good school, it is a little overhyped by the OOS who have seen too many ranking studies. I don’t see the average UVA graduate (and I see a lot of them) better educated or better employed than the graduates from VaTech and, gasp!, Virginia Commonwealth. A top-notch student from either of these schools (or from UPitt, Washington and Jefferson college, etc) elicits as much interest as a good student from UVA and sometimes more because the Tech and VCU students often have taken an unusual path (work/school or military and then school), which generally means they make better employees than pampered product of a suburban HS to UVA with no stops for real life graduate. Don’t go into debt or through lots of angst to get an education in VA that you can get cheaper in your own state.</p>
<p>fineartsmajormom, I take it you’re not too crazy about UVa?</p>
<p>U. Pitt has an honors program, which many people like. Penn State has highly competitive admissions to its Scheyers Honor College, which many people love and which offers 3.5K a year of merit money. As a PA. resident, I would apply to them in addition to UVa. However, both are huge universities with branch campuses, which may be somewhat viewed as watering down the degree.</p>
<p>While UVa has many large first year classes, you may find that some other larger public universities have larger 2nd and 3rd year classes. Also, the budget cuts at UVa have not been nearly as severe as at many public universities.</p>
<p>In response to a comment above, a student graduating from VCU with several years of work or military experience may be more marketable than a brand new UVa grad who went to college straight from high school. However that is not exactly comparing apples to apples. To be a fair comparison in that scenario, you would need to compare that new VCU grad to a UVa grad with a couple years of work experience. </p>
<p>Again, different colleges and universities are ideal for different majors and different personality types. Apply to many different types of colleges to keep your options open and so you can compare aid packages and NET PRICE.</p>
<p>I am curious about the OPs question - does anyone know what the difference is between in-state and OOS SAT scores? We live in MD and our S2 loves UVA (current hs senior) and is hoping to get in although he has heard that you need “ivy-league stats”. He is really hoping that is not true as we know lots of VA kids who have been admitted with good solid records but not 2100+!!</p>
<p>I understand the need for test scores but it seems the last few years has seen a tremendous increase in scores at all the top universities. Our older child was a 2009 HS graduate and we were bombarded with the news that they would be the “biggest, most competitive” class in years - making the admissions process very stressful. Now, 3 years later, the same schools have even higher scores! I guess its a good thing we don’t have another child…</p>
<p>UVA does not publish SAT IS vs OOS unfortunately.</p>
<p>hazelorb - thank you. We assume the OOS fall into the higher end of the published scores which have a fairly large range. The website still has the scores for the class entering in 2010 - we visit this Saturday so will hopefully learn the updated scores for the current first-year class.</p>
<p>For a little more information on UVa’s standardized test score distribution, see: [Common</a> Data Set: Institutional Assessment and Studies, University of Virginia](<a href=“http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/datacatalog/cds/admission.shtm]Common”>http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/datacatalog/cds/admission.shtm). This Common Data Set is for 2009-2010 admission year, but it does give a little more information regarding test scores. For example for those first years enrolled, 33% scored 700 or above on the SAT I reading section, 40% scored 700+ on the math, and 35% scored 700+ on the writing section. Note, these statistics are for first years who enrolled, not for the total pool admitted, for which the percentages with scores above 700 on a given section is likely higher.</p>
<p>What can you take away from this as an OSS applicant? Just that higher scores are better, given the limit on OSS students at UVa. Will lower scores preclude admission of an OSS student with a stellar academic record; well-crafted and interesting essays; and a background and/or record of extra curricular activities that suggest the student would contribute to the UVa student body as a whole? No.</p>
<p>I don’t know from what sources fineartsmajormom has gathered her information. Bad grad school placement? I’m a Stanford PhD student, along with at least 5 other UVA students (in my class alone) that I know who are also PhD students in the social sciences, at least a dozen in each the b-school and law school. You don’t believe me? Walk around campus. Bad law school placement? UVA sends at least a dozen of its students to Harvard Law, Columbia and other T-14 (we send at least 2-3 to Yale Law) and 45-55 students to UVA Law ( a top-10 law school). Bad employment? Ok, if you discount the entire comm school and the obscene number of elite firms who come to campus to recruit students…I don’t even want to go through each thing that you’ve listed as you are outright lying. Ok I get, UVA does not offer fluffy majors like “photography” and “still life” but you don’t have to knock it just because your kids want to major in useless things and want to go to obscure art schools in New England. When you have a kid at a UVA-equivalent school or an Ivy League, come back with grad school placement statistics and employment numbers. Until then, please just stay in your “Visual Arts” forums.</p>
<p>Elitist “I think I should be good with 1420/2220 and good extra-currics”</p>
<p>I think very few in-state students with good gpa’s and SAT scores consider UVA a safety school. UVA rejects many accomplished applicants. The mean accepted scores from our VA HS are 1430 SAT and 4.2gpa. The acceptance distribution appears to indicate that grades are weighted more than SAT scores. That is, there are a good number of higher SAT scores with slightly lower gpa (3.9-4.1) that are rejected. Conversely, there are lower SAT scores with 4.2 gpas that are accepted.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to be cocky at all - I’m just throwing my scores out to see what everyone thinks. I certainly wouldn’t call it a safety, but I think I have a reasonable chance.</p>
<p>Elitist- I would say that while you are highly qualified, I have been told that U VA is extremely difficult to get in as an OOS student. If UVA is a top choice for you, make sure you put a great effort into the essays!</p>
<p>I agree with one of the posters above, however, who said that UVA is not a great value for OOS students. You would practically be paying private school tuition. At some privates you may also qualify for aid that would bring your total cost less than UVA. I know a friend of mine’s daughter got a full tuition scholarship at Vandy. In the end, I’m sure you’ll be accepted at several excellent schools, but you will then want to factor in the value that you will be getting for your tuition dollar. Keep lots of options open and don’t get too fixated on any one school, especially not UVA.</p>
<p>pamom59, UVa is public, with a primary responsibility to the citizens of Virginia. The great majority of aid is need based, even for instate students. The main merit awards are the few Jefferson Scholars every year but these are not awarded by the university.</p>
<p>Yes, it makes sense to apply to many colleges so you compare many aspects, including merit and need based aid. </p>
<p>Many people have reported on this website that they would have preferred to go to UVa, but another college offered them a ton of merit aid, and UVa did not. UVa often is able to offer need based aid that is equal to the most generous colleges, but it does not attempt to match merit offers. </p>
<p>Many colleges use merit based aid very strategically to bring up their average test scores. Most of those colleges that offer the largest amounts of merit aid do not meet 100% of need.</p>
<p>charlieschm is correct. Also, UVa ,unlike some other public institutions that want to raise their numbers, just does not need to throw out tons of merit aid to attract high stat kids,both instate and out of state. Son got tons of stuff from privates encouraging him to apply and mentioning merit opportunities. He was even still getting stuff from some privates (“we don’t give up easily”) after he already had applied ED to UVa and been accepted. The only thing these privatres knew about him was that he had high stats. There are lots of privates (and many publics) that are throwing out merit aid to attract high stat kids. UVa is just not one of them but is one of the few publics that will meet need and cap loans.</p>
<p>I must say I was shocked today when a colleague told me that her daughter who is a freshman at Princeton is paying $18000/year compared to our $24000 IS at UVA. They are from the same socio-economic background as us.</p>
<p>guillaume, That really doesn’t shock me at all. HYP are well known for providing great aid these days and have endowments to support that. I think UVa is in general a great deal for most instate families. We were full pay at UVa and now full pay at Virginia Tech with our youngest. No complaints-great education at a reasonable cost.</p>