I’m surprised that the yield rate for OOS students is relatively low.
@Dean J I can help boost it 
Well I think Dean J kind of gave a hint that UVA decisions don’t HAVE to release on a Friday, so hopefully somewhere around Wednesday? Fingers crossed for that cause I really can’t wait any longer :p.
I have a genuine appreciation for UVA’s transparency with their numbers. Doesn’t require all the digging other schools do, and even then they may not be published!
Just another thing to love about UVA!
Dean J thanks for the update! Admission rates consistently going down over the years with both IS and OOS students! How reliable I wonder is the CAPPEX website at really giving an accurate idea of a student’s chances? According to them my D has a great chance of getting into UVA but with ACT of 30, SAT 1400, GPA 3.9u/4.3w, OOS I’m not too hopeful - her stats are not Ivy-Esque! I think I need to stop obsessing on these websites and trust she will go to the college she was meant to go to even if it means going to UMass with half the kids in her class!!
“I think it’s going to be Friday for 2 reasons.
Reason 1) The admissions board usually needs a full week to finish looking through all the applications. That is why they wouldn’t have posted it last Friday because they had Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, off. However, they have a full week this week.”
Gizmo – but isn’t MLK Day a Monday holiday every year? And didn’t UVA release decisions the past two years at the end of MLK week?
But I like that you are working this!!!
: )
I know it is easier said than done but having gone through the process with my own kid who is now a junior in college you really need to focus on something else. (positive) You’ve completed the applications and yes waiting can be a pain but whatever is meant to be is going to happen and you are going to have some offers on your hand to choose from. College is what you make of the experience and the opportunities available to you so though it is nice to have a first choice keep several options open that you will fall in love with and be happy to attend. There a multiple paths to reach your goal and for now focus on enjoying the rest of your senior year of high school with your friends. The busier you keep yourselves the less crazy you will go waiting for a result. Speculating release dates is only going to stress you out more. Put it out of your mind and focus on other things. When they are ready to release they will inform you meanwhile just focus on other positive things in your life.
Lol guys, no matter where you go to college you are not going to envision yourself anywhere else. That being said good luck to everyone, but if them releasing on Friday rather than tomorrow means they take more time to finalize applications and ponder their decisions, we should all be happy that the countless hours of time we’ve spent on our apps is being recognized with the same care and dedication on the other side. Chill! It’ll all be over soon regardless 
There was a great article in the Washington Post yesterday about the stress that kids are put under by their parents to get into “top colleges”. They are even petitioning colleges to include a mental health fee for counseling. The article stresses its not where you go to college but what you do when you are there. As a hiring professional I am much more interested in the students success and activities in college than the actual college that they went to. There is a college for everyone and I am a firm believer that you end up going where you are supposed to go to be successful. UVA is an awesome university but honestly…there are great universities all over the country. Relax people…relax:)
"I sort of cringe at the Ivy comparisons. We are no where near single-digit admit rates. "
“I’m surprised that the yield rate for OOS students is relatively low.”
Since there’s no decisions to discuss, I’ll go on a rant about one of my pet peeve topics.
UVA’s 24% OOS yield is just fine. Same yield that, say, BC gets – which is another top 30 USNWR school that (like UVA) abstains from early decision (and its cousin single choice early action).
UVA has always done the right thing on this. Ten years ago, it joined Princeton and Harvard in eliminating binding ED. When market forces dictated the necessity of an early admit program, UVA went for unrestricted EA (which is the right thing to do for the students) while Harvard and Princeton went for SCEA.
If you want to DRAMATICALLY decrease your acceptance rate and increase your yield, all you have to do is put ED into place. Yield on ED offers is 100%. These days many schools (Penn, Duke, Northwestern, Vandy) fill half their seats through binding ED. Locking in that many seats ED empowers the school to “manage” (i.e. manipulate for ranking purposes) its admit rate down to a ridiculously low level. Duke and Penn are highly selective schools, but they are nowhere near as selective as their 10% admit rates suggest.
If those schools would get rid of the ED gimmick, they would necessarily end up with much higher admit rates and much lower yields. In short, their numbers would move in the direction of UVA. But in order to massage their numbers in order to keep up with the Joneses (HYPS), they restrict and truncate the college selection options and process of its applicants. ED is good for the schools but mostly bad for the kids. The whole current crazy system would be significantly improved and de-escalated if all the ED and SCEA schools moved instead to unrestricted or lightly restricted EA instead.
Props to UVA for taking the yield/admit rate numbers hit to do the right thing. Others in that bucket are MIT, ND, Gtown, USC, UNC and BC.
So having said all that, I think the stats air gets pretty thin at UVA for the unhooked OOS applicants. While the admit rates are not single digit Ivy low (due to no ED among other things), I think the qualifications in that part of the pool are getting up there.
@northwesty Wow, That was a great analysis and you are so right! I never thought of it that way and I do pay attention to this stuff. I have thought recently that there should just be ONE early option at all schools…either EA or ED. But there are so many mutations now and you are right it really might be more about manipulating the numbers.
Like now U Chicago has ED and EA!!! and some schools have ED I and ED II…it’s a little crazy now.
Funny, the schools that you praise are many of the schools on my daughter’s list, as well as her older sister who is at BC now. I was glad to see you mention them.
Thanks for the “rant”…I enjoyed it!
Well said @northwesty. I think so unfavorably of the schools that have ED that now that our second child is applying, those schools moved to the bottom of the list. I think in the long run, we will see the ED schools reputation deteriorate. It is already happening. No one feels good about a school when the they see their classmates in the 10%-20% class rank space get in because they were willing to be financial-blind and option-limiting just to improve their application chances. Then the top 10% pool gets deferred/waitlisted during the RD rounds only to receive phone calls from admissions saying if you demonstrate that you will enroll if admitted, then we will admit you. Yes, this actually happened to our older child. Who can feel good about a school that waitlists the Valedictorians yet readily admits the 10%-20% just to guarantee a high yield? It will come back to bite them…Kudos to UVA and the like!
Really? Schools are calling waitlisted kids to make sure they will come before they admit them? Actually, this kind of explains why my oldest daughter got a waitlist at a school that we thought was a safer choice (she ended up refusing the spot she was so pissed, so jokes on them!).
There are schools that are very upfront about their yield protection. Last time I checked Lehigh’s admitted students stats page, it’s in black and white. The acceptance rate for the applicants with SAT’s in the 1500’s is lower than the acceptance rate for the kids with scores in the 1400’s (at least it was last year, I haven’t checked since). I give them credit for at least not trying to hide it.
I’m learning so much from these posts!
I’ve been accepted to BC and Umich so far with relatively low test scores (31 ACT) but a strong GPA, course rigor, EC’s, and some great essays. Any chance this formula works at UVa as well? Writing is my strong suit and that’s why my act is low (math killed me), so I guess I’m just wondering how much stress UVa puts on standardized tests…
@FORKTHIS what did you put down as your intended major? At BC and Michigan, I’m assuming you put liberal arts and something not quantitative? That might have enabled them to look beyond the math score (and by the way 31 is a good score! But yes, maybe low for OOS at UVA).
@collegemomjam thanks for the words of encouragement! I applied Arts and Sciences for both with an intended major in Economics or Political Science
@FORKTHIS
@FORKTHIS I think UVA will look at your application holistically and if it is just a low math score, they may be able to look beyond that. 31 is a good score and I’m sure there are lost of OOS acceptances with that score. But I’m not really sure! I like that combination of majors and I don’t think you need a killer math score to handle them.
@collegemomjam Hope so, fingers crossed!!
One thing that I dislike about college confidential forums is that it creates an atmosphere where kids who do exceptionally well on their ACT scores and are fortunate to obtain a 31 would unfortunately believe that to be a low score.
Forkthis
You should be proud of your score. You will find that the talent that allowed you to obtain such a good score will continue to open many doors for you in your future no matter which school you call home for the next 4 years.
Don’t let anyone tell you that you had a low score. Especially yourself
Good luck and realize that anywhere you attend will prove to be the best fit!
@Darthdad I totally agree… I said the other day how i got my ACT score (32) which i worked incredibly hard to raise from a 29 and honestly thought was impossible. Then i got my score back and said wow! Im in the top 2-3% of all test takers… Then its like you come on here and everyone has a 34 or above and suddenly you don’t feel so great about your score. It definitely isnt fun but my advice to everyone in the same position is to remember how many people may have tried so hard to get the same score as you but couldn’t. Even if it was easy for you, be grateful for how many doors its opened for you!