I’m sorry your daughter was denied admission, certainly as a Notre Dame graduate you are well aware that there will always be many more great applicants than spots. You said your daughter has 7 other acceptances, I am sure she will be happy at whichever she decides to attend, we as adults tend to hold onto the thorns of grudges but she will bloom where she is planted.
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What is the working theory on this thread for why high stat in-state students were wait-listed?
My S is in-State (NoVA) applicant for Engineering (Comp Sci). I am an VT alumni.
SAT=1560, GPA 2.2, All IB, AP, Honors Courses since 8th grade, full IB Diploma with Chinese as 2nd language expected, AP Scholar with Honor (4 APs), National Merit Finalist, One of only 20 Va Seniors Nominated by State Dept of Education to be a candidate for Dept of Education Presidential Scholar Award, Co-author on research paper with Johns Hopkins U Comp Sci professor submitted for publication in professional journal, tons of extra-curriculars (Eagle Scout; Varsity Athlete in 2 sports; Class Vice-President; President of 3 Student Clubs); community Service as Student rep to City govt), and worked 2 jobs). VT earlier invited him to apply for stage 2 of Davenport scholarship saying that only 15% of the 2000 engineering applicants were invited to stage 2.
To my surprise he got wait-listed at VT.
Sorry … typo … GPA was4.2 … not 2.2
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Were most of the waitlisted students majoring in Engineering? Seems like a very competitive major at VT I guess. I am amazed by the stats and double legacies. Same thing happened to my older daughter and Villanova with a double legacy and amazing stats a couple years ago.
S21
NVA in-state
Accepted to engineering
Denied Honors
1590 SAT
NMS finalist
USDOE Presidential scholar invitee
So-so extra-curriculars
Lots of APs (all 5 except 4 in Chinese—not a heritage speaker)
Close to 4 UW at TJHSST
This is a crazy year. So sorry for those who were shocked to not get in. Anybody going into CompSci (i work in software) does not need to worry about the vagaries of these individual fluke rejections. Hard workers will achieve at the school they end up at and build exceptional careers and fulfilling lives. Parental college obsession (speaking as one of them) is a stupid game that the elite schools lure us to play to keep their market alive. It’s a sham. There are plenty of seats to go around at strong schools.
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They took away the second major choice for Engineering and Architecture a few years ago. It really works against kids who know they want to go to VT but may not make the cut into those two programs specifically. Such a bummer.
My son just declined his spot on the College of Engineering waitlist. Hopefully this frees up space for someone else. Wishing everyone all the best!
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The 2020 class was an anomaly in terms of the waitlist because of Covid striking in March and the concern that international students wouldn’t be able to come, OOS students wouldn’t want to travel, kids would take a gap year, etc. The Director of Admissions contacted other Virginia schools last spring to give them heads up that VT would be pulling a substantial number of in-state kids from the waitlist (I seem to remember a big number like 800). This was atypical. Who knows, this year is so far a crapshoot for admissions, so maybe they will end up pulling a lot off the waitlist again, but I just wanted you to know why last year looked different.
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Your S21 is an exceptional student, so much to be proud of! Yield protection is the most likely factor at play and with your son’s research at Johns Hopkins, the assumption would be that he is destined for a tippy top school and Virginia Tech is his safety. Another factor is the school itself, some posters mentioned above (not yours) that their kids go to an engineering magnet school in NoVA. Schools can only take so many kids in the same “bucket” (geographic, demographic, major, etc). But with so many students applying to so many schools this year because the test optional pushed everyone into the “this is the year to shoot your shot” camp, coming off the wait-list is highly likely too (it already was, as someone posted last year’s results above, and this year will be even more so).
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How do I accept the waitlist offer?
Where is the response to waitlist form? I don’t see it on the portal.
My son OOS got in to VT. He has pretty good stats and was ‘soft rejected’ by our own UT Austin (somewhat similar case as yours). Soft reject because UT could not deny him admission as he was auto admit, top 3% of his class. UT put him in the ‘Undeclared Major’ category.
My theory is that colleges are doing this for:
(1) Yield protection
(2) Out of state tuition
Just to elaborate on the second point - it seems to me that public colleges are offering admissions many OOS kids to offset some of the cost for supporting instate kids who need direct financial aid.
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It was in the “status update” section. It’s no longer on our portal now that we’ve responded, and I can’t remember the exact wording…but I remember seeing “optional” and something along the lines of respond to waitlist.
There should be a link to click on in the status update section of the portal.
That’s weird… all I have is a link to view application update.
Yes same. We don’t have the link to respond to the waitlist.
Ours wasn’t there until this afternoon. It may just take time for the portal to update.
From NJ?
Not applicable to VT, which is a Virginia Land Grant University - stipulations being that majority of admits are from in state. Last 5 years VT averaged 70% in-state admits. As mentioned previously, you should not under any circumstances believe that what’s posted on CC forums is in any way indicative of overall results or offers. The # of posts here is statistically insignificant.
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This is not a unique phenomenon… read previous year results threads. Admissions likely has a reasonably good algorithm to predict EA applicant stats (and HS applying from) vs. who actually accepts offer of admission. A huge mass of EA applicants with high stats who did not apply ED likely translates (in their eyes) as “shoppers”. Unfortunately your child may have gotten caught up in that mass, even though VT was their first choice. Same question that is asked of all EA applicants who were waitlisted but who post that VT is their dream school - why didn’t they apply ED? Would have at least provided the chance for some add’l demonstrated interest.
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