<p>I was wondering how competitive this year's applicant pool was. I was surprised that only 16 students from my school were accepted when we regularly have around 40-50 students get in every year. Our class is also more competitive than last year with higher average SAT and more people with above a 4.0 GPA. What happened?</p>
<p>A big increase in applications over the last 2 years. The stats are on Dean J’s admissions blog.</p>
<p>From Dean J’s blog:</p>
<p>2013</p>
<p>Total number of applications: 29,005
Total number of VA apps: 8,831
Total number of OOS apps: 20,174</p>
<p>Overall offers: 8,528
Total VA offers: 3,594 (40.7% offer rate)
Total OOS offers: 4,934 (24.46% offer rate)
Enrollment goal: 3,485 (between EA and RD)</p>
<p>2012</p>
<p>Total number of applications: 28,272 (up from 23,971 last year)
Total number of VA apps: 8,788
Total number of OOS apps: 19,484 </p>
<p>Overall offers: 7,758 total offers (7,844 last year, including waiting list offers)
Total VA offers: 3,403 offers (38.7%)
Total OOS offers: 4,355 offers (22.4%)</p>
<p>2011</p>
<p>Total number of applications: 24,005 (up from 22,512 last year)
Total number of VA apps: 7,955
Total number of OOS apps: 16,045</p>
<p>Overall offers: 7,750 total offers (7,212 last year, including waiting list offers)
Total VA offers: 3,562 offers (45%)
Total OOS offers: 4,183 offers (26%)</p>
<p>The SAT scores have been gone up every year for the past five years or so. Which suggests that the applicant pool is getting stronger.</p>
<p>Looking at these numbers, I just shake my head. These are some great students, whether they were accepted by UVA or not. I could never get in now based on my stats from 30 years ago… Thanks for posting the past three years, it is interesting to see things evolve. I guess the common app and EA returning play into the increasing number of students applying.</p>
<p>I don’t think the Common App is to blame here. Some people seem to think Common App allows someone to apply to loads of schools at the click of a button. It’s a little more involved than that. 
We went to the Common App in 2008.</p>
<p>Early Action is definitely a major factor in the jump last year.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses guys and gals.</p>
<p>Actually, one of the easiest times to be admitted in the last 30 years as far as percentages was in the early 1990s. </p>
<p>Overall, the admission percentage rates haven’t changed that much over the years, but the number of very high quality applicants has greatly increased. The UVa undergrad student enrollment has increased about 25% over the last 30 years, and there has been a huge increase in the number of applications submitted by each applicant across the US. </p>
<p>The huge change has been in the number of international applicants. 30 years ago there were almost none.</p>