" only wish that the Ivies had a 22% acceptance rate like UVA’s OOS acceptance rate…then our kiddos would have even more choices."
CP123 – the admit rate is the product of two other numbers that are so very easily manipulated – number of apps times yield on offers.
UVA could have a 10% admit rate like Penn does if it wanted to (but UVA doesn’t want that). Penn could have a 22% admit rate if it wanted to (but Penn doesn’t want that). It is so simple and easy. The admit rate is basically a BS number. The qualifications of the students that are admitted and enroll is the only real meaningful data.
Penn fills 54% (that’s right 54% !!!) of its seats via binding early decision. UVA fills 0%. The yield on those Penn ED offers is 100%. Which then allows Penn to drives its admit rate in regular decision down into the ridiculous single digits. ED is a gimmick that makes Penn look more selective than it actually is… If Penn went to unrestricted EA like UVA, what would happen?
Penn’s yield would go WAY down. So in order to fill seats, Penn’s admit rate would have to go WAY up. But at the end of the day, the kids who enroll are the same. Penn is 30-34 ACT range and UVA is 29-33 for enrolled students. Which means the stats for UVA OOS are going to be the same or better than Penn’s.
UVA ain’t HYPS (who don’t use ED but use SCEA which is a hybrid of ED as a practical matter). But is UVA OOS comparable to Penn, Northwestern (50% of seats filled via ED), Duke (47% of seats), Dartmouth (43% of seats), Cornell (38% of seats), Brown (38% of seats)?
Absolutely. The enrolled student stats numbers prove that.
Have you guys seen Dean j’s new blog post? Wow! 4,000 more people applied early action this year than last year. I wonder how the jump will be with regular decision.
@VAResident2021_ I am truly shocked. I just read it…No wonder the review took so long. As I said all along, I am happy that they take their time and don’t rush a decision date. I love UVA!!!
“Have you guys seen Dean j’s new blog post? Wow! 4,000 more people applied early action this year than last year. I wonder how the jump will be with regular decision.”
Last cycle was 17k EA app and 15k RD. This cycle is 20k EA and 17k RD.
So basically half of UVA’s admissions work is now done at the EA stage. Given how heavily the other top 25 schools rely on binding ED and SCEA, I’d expect more and more of the admissions process at UVA to move into the early stage.
Given where UVa has placed the admissions bar, I think they can be pretty sure that the unhooked oos applicants who actually matriculate to UVa will have turned down an Ivy or Stamford to do so.
Given the intricacies of the SCEA and ED policies within the top 25 schools, UVA is the place that everyone playing the top 25 game can apply to early. I think that is why you see the number of UVA’s EA apps going up so strongly, especially on the OOS side.
If you apply HYPS SCEA, you can’t apply to any other school early action. But you can apply to any state school. So UVA EA is allowed.
If you apply ED (Penn, Brown, Cornell, Duke, Vandy, NW, JHU, Dartmouth, Columbia, Emory), you can’t apply to another school ED. And you can’t apply early to HYPS (SCEA) either. And you can’t apply to Gtown or ND (REA) early either. But you can apply to an unrestricted EA school. So UVA is allowed.
If you apply to Gtown or ND (REA), you can’t apply to any school binding ED. And you can’t apply to HYPS SCEA (because Gtown and ND are privates). But again UVA REA is allowed.
Weird how it all dovetails. Way too complicated imho, but that seems to be how the market currently works.
@northwesty you should write a book. I thought I had all of this mastered, but I am learning so much from your posts. You are so right, once again! Very good analysis and it does make sense of some of these decisions that don’t seem to!
I learned all this during this cycle. Since my OOS kid was a legacy, we definitely wanted to shoot that bullet for an EA application to UVA.
Once we decided that, then we had to go down the rabbit hole of where else we could/could not apply early among the SCEA/ED/REA schools. While there’s all kinds of prohibitions among the SCEA/ED/REA schools, UVA (a public with unrestricted EA) is always OK with all those other swanky schools. Which is probably why the UVA early pool is getting so strong these days.
The same may be true for UNC, UM, Cal and UCLA, but my kid didn’t apply to any of those so I don’t know for sure.
^ from what I read here and see from London kids, the most common EA “trade” is a combo of one ED or SCEA choice plus UVA and/or UMich. Maybe this is why UM defers so many OOS kids as they hope they will withdraw if they get an SCEA or ED slot?
UM has been deferring a lot of EA kids ever since they went Common App a few years ago, which blew up their yield assumptions and they wound up over-enrolled several years in a row. Yield on EA defers/RD admit offers is a lot lower than on EA admit offers.
Now it makes sense to me why UVA has its EA decision date in mid-January rather than mid-December. That keeps UVA from wasting too many resources on the kids that successfully ED elsewhere. And (to a lesser extent) kids that successfully SCEA.
If your parents only finished high school and you are first generation, is it apparent to the admissions people from rrading the section where your parents report their education? I saw no other section on the applications to report it. Also, I hope to be selected in the next couple of weeks to become a member of a special student council advisory panel for our city. We will hold public televised hearings and meet just as the city council does. Plus my first semester grades were straight A’s. Do you think it would help to report those things as updates ? Might it improve my chances in RD as I was deferred EA?
