My DD deferred IS. We know 2 kids at our FCPS high school accepted. I agree with the statement kids are freaking out after VT and UVA now. She feels a tremendous amount of pressure now for mid-year grade performance; all APs plus she is a competitive athlete which is making time management between now and the end of January virtually impossible. She is also deferred at Georgia. The pressure is on!
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Best wishes. Please research the deferral rate acceptances. I know UVA has been low this past two years. My nephew (OS) was deferred 2 years ago (luckily he did get in and is now a 2nd year) but it made for a stressful senior year and he was extremely fortunate. There is a good chance that your daughter could have a stellar academic year and still not get in, just because there are just so many completely worthy candidates. Personally, I’d prioritize balance and lining up some other great options.
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That’s the plan. I still am trying to keep her motivated; she is in all APs and has all As with the exception of AP Calc AB, but she is in a non-STEM major. Her brother and sister both went to UVA but they no longer ask on the application. Her brother was deferred EA and got in and her sister applied RD. Both my older kids graduated from Batten. Siblings are hyped she got deferred though. I am still proud of her; of course, I am realistic. It’s just so hard!
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How strong a factor is legacy? Like with a 3.9 UW (40/42 in IB predicted, 7 A* 2 A in IGCSE), 1550 SAT and with a parent having a Darden degree does that make admission likely or still a maybe. I live outside the US but am a citizen (lived in Richmond for 5 years).
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Legacy is not a big factor at UVa. I’m a Med grad, my daughter was not accepted. My son is applying this year, but if he gets in, I don’t think my being a grad will have made a difference.
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As the parent of an OOS legacy who will be graduating this May, it has an impact…to what degree may be changing.
Here’s an opinion piece from the Cavalier Daily from 2020 which addresses this point (in an attempt to eliminate the legacy bump all together.)
https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2020/02/brasacchio-abolish-legacy-admissions-at-u-va?ct=content_open&cv=cbox_latest
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My dd applied ED and was deferred. She is sure she submitted her SATs (1500) but when she looks at the portal now they don’t show up. Is there anything she can do to make sure that UVA does in fact have her SATs? Thanks so much for your time.
Do you have a bill for the last one ? Can you price and that u sent in? Did she ever see her portal updated?
If no to all three, ensure you are still able to (ie they’ll stil take) and get it ordered.
And make sure she’s checking the account to show it received.
You can double check I believe in college board where you sent it or check email. We saved all our receipts as pdf after we ordered the SAT reports. You can email the admissions office and ask them to confirm receipt of the SAT score report.
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I have no prior experience with College Board, but found their “Score Sends” process horrendous. Numerous glitches. I was regularly following up to make sure scores were sent.
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don’t use Safari on a Mac to send scores. Use Google Chrome. Had lots of problems using safari with college board.
This is the key. You need to be checking the UVA portal until it shows up - and if it doesn’t, you need to check to ensure it was sent.
It could have been handled - or attempted to be handled - in advance. We applied to 21 colleges for my daughter and had to check each portal to ensure everything was complete.
Sending the app is just step one of an arduous process.
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It’s hard to quantify exactly how strong the legacy factor is, but it does exist - Dean J has acknowledged that legacy can be meaningful for OOS applicants. I highly doubt that legacy alone would push someone with a subpar application over the line, but among a large group of similarly qualified applicants, legacies are more likely to be chosen than non-legacies. As of 2021, the alumni association was claiming that the OOS legacy admit rate was roughly double the published OOS rate. Some of this may result from legacies being stronger applicants on average than non-legacies, but that likely wouldn’t account for such a large discrepancy given the strength of the overall UVa pool.
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The Alumni Association also offers a nice college advising service for legacy applicants. I think you get 2 meetings before applications are submitted.
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That’s awesome!
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Used to be called ALP (alumni legacy program) now College Compass and is open to legacy students. We used this when my daughter applied and it was invaluable. They helped her select her courses in high school and gave guidelines to help improve her likelihood of acceptance. The counselors work at arm’s length from the admission’s committee but consult with them regarding what they are looking for in a strong applicant.
We followed their advice closely and it helped not only with UVA but what things other school’s were looking for as well. Mine was accepted EA OOS and will be graduating in May.
Here’s a link to the website About College Compass - UVA Alumni Association College Compass
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Does anyone know how applicants get selected for the legacy scholarship? Is there an application to compete?
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Hi - When my older son applied to college 4 years ago, UVA used to break out their middle 50% SAT scores by “In state” and “OOS”. That does not seem to be the case anymore…
Now it seems to be just broken out by the specific school - like Engineering and so forth.
My question is… does UVA still expect the OOS scores to be sky-high??
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“UVA is pretty clear that there isn’t an huge advantage of EA over RD. They will review the apps the same way in each phase so if the application is stronger with senior grades it is best to apply RD. For example if a student is taking most APs during their senior year, I inferred most likely the student would deferred to RD because they want to see the senior grades.”
My son had every intention of applying EA but our household got hit with the flu during December (despite all of us having gotten our flu shots). It threw everything off. He missed final exams and had to make them up over break while trying to finish apps. Thankfully he quit hit p/t job—something had to give. But I’ve been worried that this ruined his best chance of getting in by applying RD.
But based on what you say here, I hope that’s true. He took his most rigorous schedule senior year and finished with all As so perhaps that will help. He and I visited UVA for their Fall Blast event during his junior year and we both loved it. We’re from the Midwest and he’s dying to go out east for college. So keeping my fingers crossed! 
Edit: I’m not quoting your post correctly above. Sorry!
When do you all think EA decisions will be released?
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