Va Tech admissions really messed up this year. And likely will mean it will be a tougher admit for applicants next year:
this “…excitement around the university’s planned $1 billion Northern Virginia Innovation Campus, sparked by Amazon and announced last fall, is a likely catalyst.” makes perfect sense when looking at a much-higher-than-expected yield.
I could see if it was Computer Science (which may fit into the general engineering category). But it doesn’t explain the over acceptance in all the other categories.
•Mechanical engineering.
•Aerospace engineering.
•Biomedical engineering.
•Biology.
•University studies, essentially an undeclared major.
•Exploring technologies, a subset of university studies.
I’m not sure you can pin a surge of accepted offers on the admissions department. By all accounts, they got either slightly fewer or around the same number of applications this year, and it’s my understanding that the number of students offered admission was also comparable to Fall 2018. The difference is the surge in number of students who accepted (yield).
Could they have tried to read the tea leaves re: the Innovation Campus and how it might impact matriculation numbers? Maybe. But how do you quantify that?
I think it’s creditworthy that they are taking a creative approach to address the issue. Best of luck to applicants for Fall 2020 though. If they plug this year’s yield % into the equation then there could be a substantial drop in offers if they want to keep incoming enrollment in the 6,500 range.
The innovation campus is not even on VTech campus. I don’t see how it could be a factor other than kids wanting to go to VTech. I know at my kid’s high school more Accepted VTech then last year. So many were upset they were waitlisted (high school on VA)
Sometimes this just happens. The year my younger kid was accepted to college…the school underestimated yield by 300 students on an entering class of under 1500. Many forced triples because of lack of dorm space.
The year my older kid matriculated as a music major…they had 12 on his instrument accent admission when typically only 4-6 did. Lots of juggling of ensembles etc.
It happens.
If they are planning to go into stem fields - 4 years from now opportunities in DC with the new campus are a tremendous draw. The new facilities are mainly for graduates - and these classes coming in are the ones that will be looking for graduate opportunities when the facilities in dc are built. Makes perfect sense in that respect.
Doesn’t have to be. Like @cbl1 mentions - in-state stem majors (many who likely could be from NoVa) would almost definitely show more interest in VT undergrad as a stepping stone towards grad studies at the new campus or employment prospects with Amazon, seeing that Amazon has stated that they intend to utilize VT grads to feed their staffing needs.
VTech has a campus in northern Virginia for graduate programs… both are not linked at all. VT grads large percentage move back to northern Va. this article is just adding an incorrect twist… top universities kids are going to in Va are UVA, VTech and JMU (always surprised why they love JMU) …
What’s going on at VT Admissions? They over-enrolled for fall 2017 and stressed campus resources. For fall 2018 they arbitrarily extended application due dates and then under-enrolled to offset 2017. Now they severely over-enroll for fall 2019. They appear to be all over the map.
My kid who works at a consulting firm for colleges commented that this is a problem a lot of colleges would love to have!
Technically it is the students that over enroll. Tech just has difficulty from year to year predicting how many will accept. Common problem at many colleges not specific to virginia tech. Acceptances are an unknown number no matter how much effort you put into predicting
@airway1 I don’t see a correlation between existing facilities and the draw of amazon and the new opportunities coming available to virginia tech students in the coming years. The draw is the new amazon partnership which they are saying drive acceptance higher. A logical jump.
@intparent Yes - the article from admissions on another thread mentioned a spike in full pay students - something other schools are struggling to acquire and completely unexpected in their trend predictions.
I think “over enrollment” is a bad term to use, since it implies blame. Just my .02.
@cbl1 Technically a student can’t enroll unless Tech accepts them. Of course admissions is wrestling with projections and anticipated yield, but they have the mechanisms to mitigate exposure. They have ED, they instituted EA, then there is RD and a waitlist. The waitlist is the fail safe. They appear to have mismanaged the process.
If virginia tech accepts 10,000 and 5,000 enroll they are not over enrolled.
If virginia tech accepts 10,000 and 7,500 enroll they are over-enrolled.
The enrollees cause the over enrollment. As far as the 10,000 accepted that is a best guess based on data they assume to be accurate as to predicting. the issue is they are trying to predict what the student is doing.
Under accepting and over relying on the waitlist means loss of many of the best candidates.
It is my impression (correct me if I’m incorrect) that VT accepted a similar number this year to last year but the yield has been much higher than previous years or their prediction models.
The school makes out financially with both over-enrollment and full pay students. The problem will come when all the full pay parents have 1st year students cramped in forced triples, or in some cases, potential communal living quarters. Full pay parents are the first to complain for sure.
ah … the greed concept again. If it were greed would they be giving out cash offers to get enrollment down … heck just pile them in if it’s all about the money. Let’s be realistic. They wanted to grow this year - but the student acceptance rate got the better of them. So now they are scrambling to do the right thing for the students as best they can while still giving more kids then ever an opportunity to attend.
You know the real issue I have about all this complaining “and yes everyone has the right to express their concerns” …let’s say virginia tech should have offered 2500 less kids the opportunity to come and the class size were then 1000 less. How do you know your child wouldn’t have been one of those 1000 now upset they didn’t get into the school of their dreams. Your 100% certain your child is so elite they would have gotten in still. I think the greed here is parents thinking the heck with other qualifiied boys and girls. As long as my kid got in I dont care about anyone else. I just don’t want my child inconvenienced. That to me defines greed. My poor kid. Virginia tech gave too many people opportunities they worked their whole life for … now my kid may have to wait an extra 10 minutes for lunch.
Let’s not forget virginia tech has given an extra 1000 kids their dream. I think if you put it up to a vote to the incoming class of fine boys and girls… sleep 3 to a room or expel these 1000 kids… last I heard our Hokies are a resilient bunch who would say “bunk is up”.
Sorry to get on my high horse here but I’m a bit irritated by those who think they could run the program better.
In the interest of full disclosure I have never worked in admissions.
I also understand that VT enrolling by major adds layers of complication as they try to project/protect yield across dozens of “buckets.”
With that said, they appear to have the tools in place to manage the process more effectively.
I’ll assume their baseline for the freshman class of 2023 was 6,000 students.
How many students did they accept ED? That becomes a fixed number, essentially a 1:1 reduction of available class of 2023 seats. Let’s assume they filled a quarter of the class with ED. Did they see a spike in ED applications? If so, wouldn’t you expect them to extrapolate that information gleaned at the front end of the process across future projections?
For EA and RD that leaves 4,500 seats. That would mean admissions allowed an over-enrollment of 33% through over-accepting. With 4,500 seats left why would they accept 8,500 more students? Why not accept 6,500 more students through EA & RD and place 2,000 kids on the waitlist? Theoretically, wouldn’t that solve the problem.