I wouldn’t even say it’s low key! Colleagues at other schools were posting about this a few days ago. The decision about a reply date change for UVA would likely come from outside of our office.
FWIW, I’m not sure one month will even give students time to travel, which is why we started working on alternative ways for admitted students to connected with faculty and current students on Monday. Every admission office in the country is doing the same right now. We’ll have more on this soon.
@“Dean J” Thank you. It will be interesting to see how the schools address this and help families make decisions. Glad its not “low key”
Waitlisted ! :neutral: (Deferred early action)
Major - neuroscience
Really disappointed, actually. Does anyone know what the waitlist acceptance rate might be this year?
DC has 1570 SAT, great GPA, a ton of AP classes with all 5s, top 5% of the school, varsity sports, great EC, great recommendation letters, community service, you name it . Deferred EA and rejected now. Seriously don’t get it !! And OOS.
OOS son deferred in EA, now waitlisted for RD. I’m not even gonna bother with his stats because I’m pretty sure we are all in the same general area. I can not tell you how many admissions counselors have told me it’s not just about the stats but about diversity of kids…race, gender, geography, student interests, etc. This was my son’s first choice but I have to believe he will end up where he is meant to be. ?♀️
White Male OOS
4.1 Weighted GPA
3.6 Unweighted GPA
1370 SAT
15 AP Classes
Multiple decent ECs
Tons of community service
Pretty bad essays (to be completely honest)
Major - Mathematics
Decision - WAITLISTED! I am actually amazed I got waitlisted, it was my #1 reach and most wanted to school to get into! I thought for sure I was going to be rejected.
@pjps1969 unfortunately, applying out of state for UVA appears to be quite a crap-shot. There is a Reddit post with people detailing acceptances/rejections/wait-lists, and shockingly there are people with perfect or near perfect ACTs or SATs who are in state and got rejected/wait-listed after applying EA. The other aspect that should be taken into consideration is that UVA has to maintain a class that is 2/3rds in state and at most 1/3rd out of state. I wish that @“Dean J” would provide some clarification on the advantage given to EA applicants over RD applicants. She previously stated that UVA “isn’t more lenient” which I find hard to believe since I doubt that in the early rounds UVA is wait-listing/rejecting far more people above its 75th percentile than it is admitting. I also saw that on Reddit UVA was admitting internationals with sub-1400 SATs, which I was stunned to witness. The only explanation that I have at the moment is that UVA RD is never a sure bet for anyone, even if they have scores well above UVA’s 75th percentile. Their admissions process seems to run counter to many other schools.
RD is never a sure bet anywhere. It is more difficult to be admitted RD than EA or ED at most competitive schools. Additionally, at least UVA takes 1/3 out of state. Look at Texas which only takes about 8% OOS. UVA is a highly ranked school and very sought after. The admissions process is competitive and is more than just stats. This is true at MANY schools and reddit is full of examples of perfect stat kids getting rejected at even lower-ranked schools. Admissions is a bit of a crapshoot as you say, that’s why you apply to several schools. Time to move on from the UVA bashing. WashU will be lucky to have you!
@5OnTheHill I don’t want to come off as bashing the UVA because it is undoubtedly a great university. What I question is when the AO on CC says that there is not a higher standard in RD compared to EA when simple observation suggests that there might be. That is my only point.
As others have said, there appears to be no rhyme or reason, but there has to be. I don’t believe that they randomly pick while drinking beer and watching Netflix. What is probably the case is that there are far more criteria that they use to select that we don’t see in the stats people post.
As with all highly selective universities, they could fill there class with near perfect GPAs and SAT/ACTs, but that would not create a diverse class with artists, poets, engineers, accountants, etc.
Where I believe that UVA differs from most publics is that they weigh legacy highly for OOS applicants. My observations (small sample size) are that a high percentage of those admitted OOS are legacies. Not sure if UVA published that statistic, but I would like to see the % of OOS that are legacies and not recruited athletes.
I don’t think that it is a mystery. UVA is transparent about what they look for, that it is more than just the students with the highest stats and that not every qualified candidate can be accepted. They also make clear that being a legacy is a benefit.
Really no different than any other competitive university with the exception of the legacy angle that not every university has.
@fl1234 How important do you think that legacy is for OOS applicants? Would legacy be a tie-breaker for a candidate who is borderline, or does it help someone who is lacking in a particular area?
Waitlisted after being deferred from EA
OOS white female
1570 SAT
4.6 weighted GPA
3.98 unweighted GPA
ranked 3/165
co-president of NHS and Students in Action (service organization), member of the Academic Team, 4 years on the dive team, a ton of service hours
7 AP, IB diploma candidate
I thought my essays were good
not sure what else I could’ve done, but I didn’t realize how random UVA seems to be so I’m not as disappointed as I was at first. I really loved UVA, but it’s very unlikely that I’ll get in off the waitlist so I’m not keeping my hopes up
@Maltamilkbone I believe that it is more than a tie-breaker. But I do have not inside information or data to support besides observations of a small group that has applied over the years.
Accepted
OOS female
SAT: 1540 (790 R/W, 750 M)
10 APs
EC: 3 sport athlete, varsity captain, science bowl, civil rights team, tutoring, TA for AP Chem.
Strengths: essays were the best I submitted to any school
Does anyone know if May 1 will remain the decision date? I would really like to visit again before making a decision on where I will be the next 4 years but traveling, as we all know, isn’t possible right now.
i probably had the worst chance of getting into UVA. I applied ED with a 1300 SAT superscore, 3.796 W GPA and a D+ on my transcript. I was deferred, got my W GPA up to a 4.041 and now I was waitlisted RD. But i wasn’t rejected! I honestly thought my app would be tossed aside as soon as the admissions officers say that one D, but I truly believe they saw something in me. I really think my essays, leadership positions and extracurriculars showcased my talent and my potential. The additional information section helped too because I dealt with extenuating circumstances the majority of high school. I am very proud of myself and satisfied with my waitlisted decision because I truly believe I can get off the waitlist. My chances were much lower than the rest of you extremely qualified people but I still made it through without a rejection! That means UVA must have saw something in me and that’s enough to give me hope. Why would UVA defer my below average application then waitlist it if they didn’t think I was qualified? I’m holding on to the hope of getting off the waitlist !
