Another thing to note though is proximity to “more” than the college. UTK - you’re in Knoxville - not a huge city but easy to get to “off campus activities”. VT, there’s a couple of surrounding streets with some restaurants and such but the closest major area is Roanoke (still only 1/2 the size of Knoxville) ~45 minutes away.
Personally a big believer that the DS/DD success at college has as much to do with making sure the vibe is right as the program they’re going into.
I referenced this list for engineering schools:
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate?_sort=rank&_sortDirection=asc
I must add that VT has the greatest restaurant in the world - Cabo Fish Taco!
For those that were waitlisted or denied at UTK, I just read a stat on the Parent FB page that less than 20k total students were admitted from a total applicant pool of about 50k. That’s around 40% admit rate. Certainly not the 75% lots of people reference from even two years ago and why many that’s considered it a safety school were not admitted.
How does that even make sense? Friends kid got into VT test optional. His gpa was lower than my student - but what VT doesn’t know if that he has a 1020 on the SAT.
The 50K applicant count is in line with Tennessee’s admissions page (49,790 apps received).
I suppose the 20K admitted will likely grow a bit as Tennessee goes to its waitlist after 5/1.
Here’s the 10-year trend in freshman admissions for UT-Knoxville, if interested.
Maybe. I guess it depends on yield from the current acceptances if they are trying to shrink the freshman class size to 6k
There’s stories all over the place of colleges that mis-judged their yield one or both of the last couple of years. With applications up at almost all institutions I would expect a very liberal use of the waitlist. Just one parents guess.
What does everyone think the drastic increase in applicants to utk are driven from (and to majority of schools below the mason Dixon)? They all seem to be up drastically since 2019, it’s almost exponential
I haven’t seen anything to suggest there was a regional bend to it (below M-D Line).
UMass rented out a hotel in the fall to house kids (and ran a bus) because they misjudged housing needs. Penn State applications hit close to - or over(?) - 100K.
I think most believe the huge UTK bump this year came as a result of the football program success. Will that increase in applications materialize in kids that now want to go there? Time will tell.
We are definitely seeing a huge increase in kids applying to SEC schools from Colorado and California. I think a lot of these kids want warm weather and big football and with test optional the UCs are very difficult to get into. Plus with the generous merit aid, it makes alotnof sense.
I’m seeing the same, I live in the north east and I’ve studied a lot of the SEC schools and it seems since Covid in general the entire southeast has seen exponential increases. Of course with that means competition is off the charts. Population of graduating seniors in general has not grown exponentially so the bucketing Has to come from other parts of the country and I’m not sure if it’s post Covid freedoms, warm weather, or what but it is huge and has impacted many a child’s college strategy !
From an intense Mid-Atlantic area, there is a definite increase in interest in southern schools with a less intense, competitive atmosphere. That, plus the ongoing Covid anxiety in our area that just makes it a pretty unpleasant place to live. I know that’s what is driving my kids and many they know to the south.
I certainly haven’t surveyed all ~1,400 colleges but have looked at some of the larger ones in different regions across the country. I don’t think I saw a single one that wasn’t reporting an increase in applications (though I think UTK was definitely an outlier in their % increase!).
I believe College Board does report out some statistics so would be interesting to look at those at the close of the cycle.
I agree that the big southern flagships offer a great combo of “brand name” recognition thru big-time football / school spirit / alumni pride, much more generous merit (esp. for high test scorers) than you can find at Big-10 flagships, good social life (and big greek for those who want it), and “better” weather (if you can survive the Aug/Sept humidity, that is).
I also think to a degree that these southern flagships are simply the beneficiaries of how hard it has become to get into T25 privates or the more prestigious publics. UCLA, UC Berkeley, U of Michigan, U of Texas, etc., have become really tough public university admits, and so kids start to “shotgun” applications to a wider swath of schools.
Good to know! DS got into UTK EA and we still need to visit. Still waiting to hear from Clemson but we are very familiar with their campus and he likes the vibe of the rural setting.
Talking to a couple of recently graduated engineers, looking at where they want to work, internship opportunities, and the alumni networks are as, if not more, important than rankings depending on what our kids want to do when they graduate. Any of these schools mentioned are good engineering school. We are working towards little debt after graduation and the best fit for our daughter.
100% agree
It seems that the percentage of international students increases every year. I was shocked to learn most of the T25 is already over 20 percent.
1,000% - though I would extend this past engineering and into almost any other field. You certainly want to go to a program with a good reputation but if it’s ranked 45 or 35 or 25 is somewhat irrelevant - future opportunity is going to come from the relationships you make in your program and to an extent the relationships the school has with employers.