We have also seen that dynamic. A lot of kids were accepted at UVA EA, but waitlisted at VT.
I have always been told that, and thought it was true but upon digging deeper I don’t think it is a legal requirement of being a land grant school (i.e., it is not part of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts). Also, Virginia Legislators regularly try to pass laws so that up to 80% are reserved to VA students for all colleges, which would imply that it is not a current law (there are numerous news articles about these efforts every year)
Also, a USA Today story from 2017 reports that the % of in-state students at VT dropped from 70% to 65% from 2012 to 2017.
This website will not let me link to the article, but the title is : " Despite trends, some public colleges say they are fighting to keep in-state students home"
If you have a primary source for the assertion that VT reserves 70% of it slots to in-state students, I would love to see it. I have always thought that what you said was true, but after researching it I am not sure of that anymore.
I was waitlisted and I applied Undecided for University Studies. I would’ve been accepted if it were any other year. 
-In-state (FCPS in NoVa), legacy, 4.24 W GPA, 1340 SAT, 26 ACT with 10 ACT Writing, 8 AP’s and 1 DE, lots of EC’s, 7 honor societies, AP Scholar with Distinction…
@NovaHokie91 I couldn’t find anything re: a legal requirement the last time I looked either. I usually preface any comment about land grant as “believing” it to be part of the process since I’ve always heard they were tied together as well. Should have done so in the parent post.
Re: 70%… I took a 2nd look and I rounded up from just above 69% for the last 5 fall headcounts. For the past 10 Fall headcounts, the average has been 68.87% in state. It’s been above 72% 2x (most recently 2 years ago) and has only dropped below 67% 1x (4 years ago when it dropped to 64.3%). The 64.3% is likely where USA Today got their 2017 figure from, but they neglected to mention that in the span between 2012-2017 that it also spiked to 72.9% one year. Don’t know if that means they technically are reserving spots.
E19: Fall Headcount: Percentage of In-State and Out-of-State Students (schev.edu)
Hello. Has anyone that was accepted into Honors heard from the Calhoun Discovery Program? I cannot find a timeline on VT’s website and am wondering if this is still a possibility for my daughter or if invitations/notifications have already been sent.
For those that want stats, my daughter is OOS, accepted to Engineering with no merit, 4.36 weighted GPA, 35 ACT (not a superscore), HS doesn’t rank, National Merit Commended Scholar, Coca Cola Semifinalist, Prudential Spirit of Community Service Bronze Award, Girl Scout Gold Award, President of Student Council, Editor of Yearbook, Volleyball Captain, Presidential Scholar nominee, Mock Trial, founding member of her school’s online literary magazine, and several other leadership positions/clubs. 9 APs.
Wow. Your daughter has some amazing ECs
Not sure if this helps. Daughter was already interviewed a few weeks back for the Calhoun. She was notified a few days that she is waitlisted for it, neither accepted or denied to the program as of yet. They mentioned that with rolling admissions this can be part of it.
She had a 4.2 weighted (OOS) coming in to senior year, but had her best semester and is tracking for 4.5 or so for end of year. Fewer ECs, but she has an amazing digital art portfolio (I may be a biased parent of course) and has been accepted with 3K merit if Calhoun doesn’t pan out, for the Creative Technologies major. She would love to get the Calhoun though.
Good luck
Thanks! It helps to know they have already interviewed. It sounds like my daughter will not receive Merit Aid of any sort. I was really hoping she would be considered for Calhoun. Good luck to your daughter–CDP seems like an awesome program!
I wouldn’t get too discouraged, like I mentioned, your daughter has amazing numbers and ECs. I think the challenge is the major. At Virginia Tech a large chunk of kids are in engineering, and the same is true for the Calhoun program. So many varieties of engineers in the program. My daughters major (Creative Technologies) has only had one representative in the first 2 years of the CDP. There are likely thousands of super strong engineering applicants at VT so it because a bit of a needle in a haystack to get it.
They also mentioned admissions for the program are rolling so until they say they are done (ie my daughters waitlist indicator moves to closed), they still may be looking at applicants.
Most yield protection at VT is a myth. It is more important for them to have higher stats students than a low (35%??) yield when doing the USWN rankings. It’s simply about math.
VT doesn’t rank candidates based on stats. They “qualify” them based on stats/rigor by major. Once they qualify, they are run through other filters (in order of importance): Race/ethnicity, 1st Gen College, geographic (InState/OOS - and WHERE in VA), Veteran Status, “Altruism” Essay, then everything else.
VT will have more than 40% of their incoming class be URM/1st Gen. (2665 of 6650 leaving 3885 spots for applicants outside those categories). 30% OOS or 1196 spots & 70% in-State or 2789 spots. 50+% (1394) typically come from NOVA. 42k Applications = a lot of qualified applicants, without boosts, left holding the bag. Welcome to the new normal.
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Does anyone know how you would be notified that you have been accepted off the wait list? Do you just keep checking the portal? I cannot find anything on it.
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@ChipPMJr Do you know how this figure is/was/will be impacted by the new laws signed in July with regard to undocumented students?
No idea how the law(?) impacted it. They were close last year (that is their minimum goal). This year presents an opportunity to overdeliver based on app #s and no tests required. The non-academic components become that much more important.
Daughter accepted
OOS (from California)
Business Information Technology Major
No test scores
4.0 UW
4 APs, 3 Honors
4 year varsity athlete
Declining offer now as she got into her #1 school
Good luck everyone
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In an overall sense, stats don’t really matter. It doesn’t measure intelligence but rather how well suited you’re in a school system. Comparing stats at the end of the day doesn’t help because it can be discouraging if one doesn’t meet a standard. Income level, demographics, and etc have different influences on a student’s academic ability. Lastly, people tend to forget essays are very important and can be the key to an acceptance. Colleges realize you’re not one dimensional but rather display creative qualities in your academic lifestyle.
From a high school senior.
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Then what can be compared? What things ‘measure intelligence’? To predict how good of a student you will be, it makes sense to look at what kind of student you’ve been. That’s logical, and research supports it.
The ‘essays’ at VT have only gotten more superficial (and poorly written) in the last few years, so it’s hard to believe they are much of a differentiator.
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@seventh1 - entirely agree, in fact, a 4.0 in one state is entirely different than a 4.0 in another. It likely does show work ethic is similar, but the level of difficulty in say Boston suburbs at a top HS can be entire different than say rural Oklahoma, so it’s apples and oranges to a degree.
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One of the things I have continued to hear from various places is that for EC, better to be deep than wide. I have seen so many kids talking about how they did 50 things (yearbook, sports, 10 different clubs, chess, debate, etc - many of these entirely different and unrelated) and anyone has to realize that the aforementioned kid is likely more checking a lot of boxes than really being passionate about something. My daughter for instance mainly focused on digital art in the tech space, and she had a portfolio, her essay was about this field, and she also had income from doing art commissions. My oldest did well in a similar way by being deep in agriscience and environment, as many of her ECs were around those same things.
In a pool of 300 strong candidates who all have a 4.3 weighted GPA and similar SAT scores, it may very well come down to the town they went to school in, or their essay, or being deep on a segment of ECs. In the end, part of it is also random, in that it depends on the admissions officer that reviews your profile, and their tastes.
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It also comes down to school priorities and the things they weighted as being important that year, none of which anyone really knows but the admission dept and the school board of reagents.
I think far too many people get too wrapped up in stats and comparing them when truly you have no idea the rigor behind the GPA, the rigor of the school, or all of the other intangibles about an application or priorities of the school in terms of admissions class.
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Not really sure how you are so sure about the “filters order of importance” unless you are on the admissions committee? Not sure what you are implying by saying “welcome to the new normal” ?
Those are the factors VT says they weigh most heavily. The “new normal” refers to the fact that many schools are more interested in constructing balanced communities than dedicated academic institutions. That is their right and they haven’t been shy about telling everyone that is what they want to do.