<p>Hi everyone! I am finally finishing up junior year, and starting to begin the college application and search process. I attend a public school in northern virginia (FCPS IB school), and UVA is my DREAM school. Everything about it appeals to me, and I can just picture myself now walking the lawn on my was to class. Oh, UVA!</p>
<p>So, in saying this, my GPA is below the average GPA accepted from my school. I currently have a 4.0 thus far, and am an IB diploma candidate. However, the average accepted GPA from my school is a 4.2. Additionally, my ACT is what I would like it to be, at a 31, and I am very satisfied with my ECs and the teacher who will be writing my recommendation. Now, heres my question. Should I apply early action even though my GPA is a little short, in order to show my interest in the school, or should I wait to apply regular decision to hopefully get my Senior Year grades up. If I apply early, will I be able to submit my first quarter senior grades after my app has been submitted? Will admissions take those grades into consideration?</p>
<p>I would greatly appreciate any insight or advice.</p>
<p>My son attends a feeder school to UVA in NOVA, was admitted EA, and will be attending this fall. My twin seniors to be are also seriously looking at UVA.</p>
<p>I would definitely apply EA in your shoes to show interest. Plus, EA had a 29% admit rate compared to 23% overall.</p>
<p>Your stats are solid for UVA (although slightly, but not materially, below the average from my kids’ HS too). In looking at my HS’s Naviance graph for UVA, it looks like the kids with slightly lower than average stats who applied EA did much better than those with similar stats who did not apply EA. In my view, at schools in demand like UVA, it typically only gets harder to get admitted as time passes and more students apply who did not quite make it to their Ivy ED etc.</p>
<p>I’m going to disagree with muckdogs, not in the fact that you should or should not apply EA, but in his reasoning.</p>
<p>UVa does not consider interest in their decision. They don’t do this for EA as it’s not binding, nor do they for RD. They have stated over and over, they assume if you apply you are interested. They also do not track interest in any way prior to application. They made it a point to state last year that EA applications would be ‘read’ with the same eye that RD applications (ie, not harder or easier). It is very, very common for EA results to show a higher percentage of applicants being accepted. Well, if there isn’t an advantage then how could that be? Simply put the applicant pool is stronger. These are the students that have their very best possible applications ready to go early in the year. They don’t need to retest, and aren’t looking for an upward trend in grades to help them out. These are very strong candidates. Do not mistake non-binding EA with binding ED where there very often is a very real advantage to applying early.</p>
<p>Do I think the OP should apply EA? That’s a very personal decision. The applications are read the same EA through RD. I would suggest submitting when you can put forth the strongest possible application.</p>
<p>You should apply early action. If anything, there is no way that the couple of points raised in your gpa will have changed a rejection to an acceptance. If anything (in the case that gpa is the only real reason of your non-acceptance) you will get deferred and then the raise in grades will count. That is if you arent accepted in the first place. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Remarkably clueless,(lol), Novaparent. Let’s see I cite statistics from Naviance showing an advantage to EA applicants with similar statistics as RD ones and these statistics are from a HS that regularly sends 25 or more students each year to UVA. I also have one child attending and two on the way. Do you have any students at UVA? What make you such an authority? Your post is “remarkably classless.” </p>
<p>Blueiguana may be right that UVA says that they read the application the same EA as RD and this may very well be the case. But I continue to believe that the best chance of admissions is EA because the pool gets much stronger RD as more kids who do not get into their ED choices apply and other strong candidates submit applications.</p>
<p>Each of the previous respondents make reasonable points based on information currently available. The bottom line is there is only one year’s data from EA at UVa, so it is really too soon to generalize. Coupling this with the still fairly new grading scale in many of the NoVa high schools, makes it even more challenging to predict chances at UVa. Plus the Fairfax schools don’t do anyone a favor by not ranking students. </p>
<p>Bottom line suggestion – work on your application over the summer. The Common App usually goes live around August 1. Check Dean J’s blog – [Notes</a> from Peabody: The UVA Application Process](<a href=“http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/]Notes”>http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/), as she often previews the UVa essay questions before the Common App goes up. If you are pleased with your essays and otherwise feel you have a solid application to put in, get it in for the EA deadline. Goblue is likely correct that the slight increase in GPA possible at this point in your high school career is probably not enough to make a difference in your outcome.</p>
<p>Absent compelling reasons to the contrary, apply EA.</p>
<p>UVA says they apply the same standard to the EA pool and the RD pool and I believe them. Having said that, the admissions percentage in EA was higher than during RD this past go round. Could be because the EA pool was unusually strong (which I could see).</p>
<p>Out of 12k EA apps, UVA accepted about 3k and then also deferred another 3k (which means those apps went into the RD pool anyway where later grades would be provided anyway).</p>
<p>If your EA app gets flat out denied, that means you weren’t in the top 50% of the EA pool. So you probably weren’t going to get in anyway regardless of what you do in the Fall semester. </p>
<p>So hard to see the downside of going EA. The upside is you’ll know where you stand with UVA (accept, deny, defer) much earlier and can then get on with things.</p>
<p>Muckdog, I actually have one student currently at U-Va and another who graduated from U-Va. So, yes, I do have some experience with U-Va admissions – in fact, looking at the numbers, twice as much experience as you do at this point. </p>
<p>More than anything else, I was amused at your characterization of your NOVA school as a U-Va “feeder.” Every NOVA high school is a “feeder” because every one of them sends many, many students to U-Va. The only true “feeder” in my view would be TJ. Plus the suggestion that applying early to “show interest” betrays a fundamental lack of knowledge of the U-Va admissions process. U-Va is on record everywhere you look that “demonstrated interest” in an absolute non-factor. I may have been too quick with my fingers, and I apologize for that, but I just want to make sure that the right information is out there.</p>
<p>Peace and fair enough re “feeder.” I was trying to use it as a short hand so that the applicant would know the Naviance statistics are based on more than a few samples. Did not mean to imply anything else by it and agree with you that TJ would have the highest numbers, although there are a lot of other really good NOVA HS’s like my sons with 10% or so of the students getting admitted to UVA. </p>
<p>I also know that UVA says there is no advantage to EA over RD in terms of how they look at the applications, but this does not mean there is not an advantage to EA since it is always easier for an admissions officer to give the benefit of the doubt to a close applicant at the beginning of the process than at the end. I thought the Naviance stats from my son’s HS bore that out. </p>
<p>In any event, congrats on your two children at UVA. I know my son is really excited about going there this fall.</p>
<p>Demonstrated interest isn’t a factor when we’re reading EA and RD. We assume that if someone files the application, they’re interested.</p>
<p>The EA pool this year was very strong. I don’t think you can just look at offer rates and draw conclusions about the process. </p>
<p>The comments about how we read were right. We don’t switch gears between EA and RD. It’s the same reading process…we just know that RD files will have mid-year grades by the middle of February.</p>
<p>I greatly appreciate the response. So lets say, in this hypothetical situation, my grades are be much stronger following my first semester of senior year rather than my junior year. Would you suggest that I hold off on submitting the application until regular decision, or do you suggest that I go for it early action?</p>
<p>Dean J would tell you, correctly, that you should apply when your app will look the strongest. So just go RD if you don’t mind waiting. But I’d say you are over-analyzing this.</p>
<p>Most kids that get into UVA are getting pretty much straight As every single semester. So I think it is a stretch to think that the difference between a reject at EA and an RD accept is going to be just one more semester of grades. </p>
<p>More likely scenario I’d think would be that a defer at EA (there were 3 thousand of those) bumps up to an RD accept with the extra grades. With my kid, I’d rather find out sooner and move the process along.</p>
<p>A huge number of students apply in the last week. At most colleges, your application will get a little more attention if you submit it earlier, before the deluge. </p>
<p>Also, I imagine students who wait until the last minute to apply are more likely to not have paid enough attention to the essays.</p>
<p>Charlieschm, you might be correct, but there are some exceptions to the notion that “students who wait until the last minute to apply are more likely to hot have paid enough attention to the essays.” </p>
<p>Both my son and daughter spent enormous amounts of time on their essays, but both submitted their apps in the last week. This is because they are perfectionists who wanted to be sure everything was just how they wanted it to be. The time right before apps were due was time off from school which allowed more time to focus. They were not denied anywhere and were accepted to UVA, W&M, BC, Bates, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Denison,W&L,Hampshire and Wake Forest. </p>
<p>CollegeHopeful, my two cents would be to spend time on the essays and make sure they reflect who you are. Take your time and do a thorough job.</p>