UVA drops Early Decision

<p>For good or for ill, there will be some students who will (at least believe) they will be hurt by U VA's decision to drop ED...</p>

<p>At TJHSST (my S's "alma mater" (can you have a HS alma mater?)), where a huge number of kids (usually between 125 and 160, out of about 400 graduates) go on to U VA, a significant group of kids apply ED because they believe they're "on the bubble"...kids who may well be offered admission ED but who would be deferred or rejected RD...TJ kids think TJ is a U VA "feeder school" (and the numbers certainly suggest this belief may be accurate--particularly when compared to the admit numbers from other excellent area high schools). The kids believe that at certain GPA/test score levels, ED will get them in whereas it's much dicier RD...</p>

<p>Now I'm not sure that group of TJ kids (may 20 or so per year?) is sufficient to change any judgement about whether to keep or stop an ED program...but it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the U VA decision...</p>

<p>U VA is a great school...as is William & Mary...but for many, many TJ kids it's second choice (or lower) because to them it feels like "continuing at TJ"...a feeling that many TJ alums at U VA report actually experiencing when they arrive in Charlottesville...</p>

<p>And the poster who said people who live in the DC area sometimes choose VA over MD (or DC itself) because of U VA (and the other great state schools here) is so right. I'm one of them. I lived in MD when my S was born; we moved to VA when he was 5...and at least half the reason for the decision was so that he could go to U VA (assuming he qualified for admission). He was offered admission to U VA, but was one of the TJ kids who felt like it would be four more years of TJ and he wanted something different...so he's elsewhere...but I've got fingers crossed that if his current thinking that he might want to go to law school turns into an actual decision, that he'll choose U VA for that (and that U VA will choose him, too!)...</p>

<p>Glad to hear, DeanJ, that you get your first T-giving dinner in years!!! Enjoy it...I'm a huge fan of your school, and remember w/gratitude the graciousness w/which you treated both S and me during the application/decision-making process...U VA was the last school S decided against (he chose among 4), and we had to ask for an extra couple of weeks for the decision due to surgery after an accident in mid-April (he hadn't visited at that point, and w/the broken ankle/surgery convalescence, couldn't by May 1). U VA was the very nicest of the four schools about accommodating us. I was as sad as S was to "give up" U VA for undergrad...(and not solely because of the money! Altho giving up a superb college education at 25% of the cost of the school he chose did in fact add to my sadness!)</p>

<p>o-mother:</p>

<p>You are exacly rigtht. While we don't have any high schools in Calif at the level of TJ, we do have several top schools that used to send 50+ kids to Cal or UCLA each and every year. When the UCs went to comprehensive review (which includes tips for low income and first gen to go to college), those top HS acceptances dropped to 20-30 at the state flagships. Some bubble kids now apply to UMich for a safety, but usually attend a mid-tier UC bcos of the cost.</p>

<p>Please note that UNC does have Early Action (which they call Early Notification). It is non-binding and surprisingly, it also permits application to ED of other schools. This truly gives the greatest amount of power to the student and it is hard to see how any applicant, rich or poor, could be disadvantaged by this. Perhaps UVA should consider something similar.</p>

<p>From the UNC admissions website:</p>

<p>"We offer freshman applicants the flexibility of two deadlines, which we call Early Notification and Regular Notification.</p>

<p>TYPE OF DECISION EARLY
Postmark/online deadline November 1<br>
Decision notification on or around January 31<br>
Binding? No<br>
Consideration for merit and need-based aid programs? Yes
Consideration for Honors Program? Yes
Enrollment deposit due by May 1<br>
May student apply for binding early decision elsewhere? Yes
May student apply for non-binding early action elsewhere? Yes "</p>

<p>xiggi - no doubt Cal and UCLA are absolutely brutal to get into - likely a bit harder than Uva...but my point about Pell grants I believe is valid - there's not much economic diversity in Northern Virginia (with 1.5 million people - it feeds a huge amount of in-staters to UVa). It is just an entirely different economy here - one that has been, due to the prominence of the Gov't - reasonably, although completely, recession proof. There's not nearly the variance one sees in California - particularly Southern California.</p>

<p>overanxious - glad to hear your views about maryland versus virginia. Not only is UVa a good school, but so are VTech and JMU. Even Virginia's so-called lesser campuses like Mary Washington and VCU are vastly superior to the Frostburgs and Salisbury's in Maryland. Not even close. And Univ, of Md. while a much improved school, sits in crime ridden and frankly depressing and unappealing PG County. It also is a commuter school, and often feels like one. Maryland for decades made billion dollar investments in negative return social programs in Baltimore (frankly the most dangerous and worst inner city I have ever visited - the crime and imprisonment stats are the worst in the country, too) rather than making the wise investment in universities and schools. Maryland has its nice places to live, but what do those higher taxes obtain? I just don't get why anyone with a choice would live in Maryland over Virginia - for the opportunity alone.</p>

<p>"Out of 534 public 4-year college and university campuses, the four with the worst representation of Pell Grant recipients among their undergraduate students were all public campuses in Virginia: College of William and Mary (8.3%), University of Virginia (8.4%), University of Mary Washington (9.5%) and James Madison University (9.9%). Four more public colleges and universities in Virginia made the bottom 50 institutions by this measure of class exclusivity.</p>

<p>Out of 1239 private 4-year colleges and university campuses, the 2 with the smallest shares of Pell Grant recipients among their undergraduates were also in Virginia: Washington and Lee University (3.6%) and University of Richmond (6.3%). Another private college in Virginia made the bottom 50 by this class exclusivity measure."
<a href="http://postsecondaryopportunity.blogspot.com/2005/12/most-exclusive-gated-communities-of.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://postsecondaryopportunity.blogspot.com/2005/12/most-exclusive-gated-communities-of.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I've looked, but I don't find evidence that the percentage of students who qualify for Pell Grants is lower in Virginia than it is in California. I do think it is likely, given the location of Virginia, that some Pell Grants students are more likely to attend other private colleges in the east and northeast. But the main difference between Pell Grant recipients in the two states is likely to be race.</p>

<p>We toured UVa a couple years ago with our son, and fell in love with it. We found out in the information session after our tour, however, that UVa's Early Decision program does not offer an admissions advantage, that is, the ED admittance rate is the same as the RD rate. At that moment, still in the first throes of love, I knew my son would never apply. The reason: he wanted to use ED to apply to a reach school, and he didn't want to waste his one shot applying to a school that conferred no advantage. So . . . he applied ED to another excellent school, got accepted, and that was it. We all still feel a little bad about UVa, but oh well, perhaps one of our kids will go there for grad school!</p>

<p>Mam1959: I can think of lots and lots of reasons to prefer Maryland's DC suburbs (Montgomery County, anyway) over VA's...and Montgy County elementary and secondary schools are just as good as Fairfax County's...but since this is a college message board, I'll refrain from getting into the non-school related issues...</p>

<p>One thing northern VA offers, tho, that is almost unique nationwide, is TJHSST...it's just a phenomenal place...but that, too, is probably "off topic."</p>

<p>I have mixed feelings about ED/EA...I see both good and bad elements to these programs. And I'm pretty convinced that if we didn't have ED/EA/Rolling Admissions/Early Notification, we'd simply move the high anxiety out a few weeks...and I'm not at all sure "losing" the early application/notification programs will put any kind of dent in the inherent subjectivity of selective school admission decisions, or the impossibility of a purely "fair" admissions system across economic or socioeconomic lines...</p>

<p>I suspect for every person an ED/EA/SCEA program hurts, it helps another...changing it just changes the groups helped/hurt...</p>