<p>Making</a> room for Virginia's brightest in its best schools</p>
<p>An interesting article in the paper today...</p>
<p>Reactions?</p>
<p>As an applicant to William and Mary, I have mixed reactions to the article. I am from out of state and I do not qualify for financial aid, just so you know where I am coming from. If the state of Virginia is going to continue to cut funding to its universities and colleges, can you really blame them for accepting more out of state applicants to make up for the loss? You need to remember that colleges are not only an educational service but also a business; they need the money. So, only increasing the number of students that they accept and increasing enrollment will make up for the loss of funds while also increasing their goal of more Virginians with degrees. I find two problems with increasing the enrollment 1) colleges may not have room for the expansion and will have to pay to possibly build more facilities to accomidate the forced expansion, so it will be interesting to see if they can turn a bigger profit than they currently have if they have to be spending money to make money and 2) accepting more student and enrolling more could dillute the quality of the students at each respective university. I know this is not the best example but say for instance William and Mary, with their current size accepts everyone with a 30 and higher ACT score and no one below 30s… so now if you must increase enrollment, the next year they may accept everyone with 29 ACT score and higher, you have now accepted student with lower stats in order to fill your new quota. I know the example is poor but i think on a larger scale it is realistic. Colleges are currently only accepting the best students they want at their school, increasing enrollment will be accepting students they would not normally accept, dilluting talent and what not.</p>
<p>As an advocate for better education for Americans, the push to increase the amount of Virginians with a degree is an excellent idea. But, it wont come without its problems to those colleges and universities, such as the ones i noted above.</p>
<p>Let me know what you think, agree or disagree? It would be nice to begin a nice discussion. Thanks.</p>
<p>These guys have been barking about this for a while now. This bill sounds like a great way to send UVA and W & M whooshing down the plumbing in terms of quality. From the Post article:
Someone who is better at math than I am (that would be all of you) can probably figure out exactly how much more OOS students would have to pay to make up for reducing OOS students from 35 percent to 25. I’m guessing that OOS tuition would then be as much as, if not more than, the cost of a top private school. This would probably mean a considerable increase in tuition for in-state students, as well, because how many OOS students who now choose W & M as a decent bargain won’t simply consider comparably priced private schools instead?</p>
<p>Right now the yearly instate COA is about $23.5K, and it’s about $45K for OOS students (including tuition, r/b, fees, and books). I don’t think Rep. Hugo has really thought this through.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add - VA taxpayers probably are paying quite a bit in state taxes, as one of the moms of a rejected NOVA student complained in the article. (So is everyone else, of course.) But the last time I heard President Reveley speak, he pointed out that less than 17 percent of the College’s annual budget is provided by funds from the state, and that the percentage was steadily decreasing. It will be less than 13 percent by the 2012 fiscal year. So sure, Virginians are paying a lot in taxes - but not all that much of their tax money is winding up in Williamsburg and Charlottesville.</p>
<p>Also, the complaining mom’s kid posted a 1300 SAT. Few OOS students stand a chance with that score. The 25th/75th percentiles for Math/CR were 1260/1440 last year - 1300 is toward the bottom of that middle 50 percent. So is Hugo’s plan to get rid of the kids from New Jersey and Pennsylvania who pay twice as much for the same education, and usually have very strong SAT scores, as well? It sounds like he wants to make the school both less affordable for Virginians, because the financial slack from fewer OOS students will have to be taken up somewhere, and less selective. </p>
<p>It would be a shame for two nationally recognized, fine public universities to lose what makes them unique. It would certainly hurt the state more in the long run (not that politicos ever really think about the long run).</p>
<p>No matter how many in-state students they accept, there will always be those who think they were unfairly rejected and are upset about their spot being given to an OOS student. This is inevitable, so I don’t see any way in which increasing the percentage of in-state students wouldn’t do more harm than good.</p>
<p>I hope they push more towards in-state applicants (because I am one 
,) but I would not go so far as to sacrifice the quality of the student body. However, I’m sure one could find easily enough in-state students of the same caliber as some of the OOS students.</p>
<p>A tough call!</p>
<p>The VA legislature tries to pass some version of this bill every year. It never passes because, as others here have noted, it’s a stupid idea. If Governor McDonnell really wants to increase the amount of Virginians with college degrees he should focus on community colleges and school funding at the K-12 level. Students from disadvantaged schools attend college at much lower rates than children from more affluent schools. Obviously there are more factors that prevent children from lower socioeconomic communities from attending college than just the quality of their schools, but the Virginia legislature should at least try to strike the problem at its root. What they’re proposing now is simple-minded legislation which does little but dilute the quality of higher education in Virginia. Oh well, can’t say I would expect much more from our fine politicians in Richmond.</p>
<p>That said, I can’t get over the sense of entitlement Seidner and his mother have. Maybe the Post just portrayed them in bad light, but there’s no reason any one should feel entitled to be accepted at a school like UVA. As others have noted, a 1300 and 3.99 (which I think we can safely assume is weighted) just ain’t that strong.</p>
<p>is Albo the same guy who had a wealthy supporter’s son not get into UVA a couple years ago and made a big stink? (edit: is this actually the same supporter’s son?)</p>
<p>Virginia, year after year, continually cuts the support it provides to its top schools. Virginia reaps the benefit in this, as many graduates stay in the area (many graduates of both UVA and W&M can be found in Richmond and on the VA side of the DC suburbs). These are well educated people who now pay taxes to the state (err, commonwealth). Everyone benefits from well educated people paying taxes.</p>
<p>You cannot cut and cut and cut and then announce a small increase and mandate that these schools take more in state students. There is absolutely nothing wrong with degrees from Virginia Tech or JMU or Mary Washington… these schools would be the best public schools in many other states.</p>
<p>Increasing the number of Virginians with degrees is an excellent goal. But you don’t get there by mandating the best schools take more Virginians. Do you really think that kid from the article with 1300 SATs and a 3.99 is not going to get a college degree now b/c he didn’t get into UVA? Exactly. The way to get more Virginians college degrees is to increase enrollment at schools like VCU, ODU, GMU, and Radford, and possibly open up another similar level school.</p>
<p>Really though, my opinion is that we do not need more people with college degrees. Too many people get college degrees already. There was just that study in the last couple weeks (someone else has seen this, i’m sure) that said a lot of students aren’t getting better at fundamental skills while they are in college. This is because too many people are attending.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that everyone who wants to go to a certain top school is not going to get in. College admissions is [partially] a crap shoot. Top schools can replace large percentages of their accepted students with people they rejected (or WL) and you wouldn’t even know the difference.</p>
<p>McDonnell seems to be against residency caps etc, so that is good.</p>
<p>another possibility, is that these delegates get complaints from helicopter parents about their kids not getting into UVA and W&M. As a result, these delegates tell the helicopter parents that they are introducing legislation that would allow more VA residents to attend these schools. This way, they will still have the support of the helicopter parents, and they can watch as the general assembly defeats their bill (that Hugo/Albo don’t even support) again and again.</p>
<p>politics is 90% theater</p>
<p>The article implies that W&M and UVA accept out of state students with lower qualifications that they would pay the out of state rate. I believe that can’t be more off base. All stats that I have seen demonstrate the opposite. Out of state accepted students have higher stats (SAT’s / ACT’s). Thoughts???</p>
<p>Certainly a topic of great controversy each year. We certainly understand that all students not admitted to W&M feel some frustration. That frustration is likely heightened among qualified VA applicants and students who are legacies. W&M is very proud of its role as a public university in Virginia and appreciates the qualities (both academic and personal) provided by all if its students. Out-of-state students contribute a lot to W&M in terms of academic merit, geographic diversity, and talent. Yes they also help support the College via tuition dollars but what they contribute as a whole is so much more than that (the same goes for the Virginia students as well). It is the combination of in-state and out-of-state students and the talent that they bring to our campus that makes W&M the smart, dynamic, global campus that it is.</p>
<p>Virginians have one of the best public higher education systems in the country which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that there are several top-notch public colleges and universities to which qualified residents can apply and if admitted, can benefit from fantastic in-state tuition privileges. Also a blessing in that there are 15 public colleges and universities in VA. A curse in that some of these top-notch schools are highly selective and Virginians have no guarantee of admission into them.</p>
<p>Hm - it turns out that Albo is a UVA alum, and Hugo is a W&M grad. It’s surprising and kind of too bad that this is their response, because it’s just not a smart approach to the problem of how to increase college grads in the state. Though it is an expedient approach to the problem of how to deal with annoyed constituents.</p>
<p>There’s a similar thread on the UVA board: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/1079668-washington-post-article-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/1079668-washington-post-article-2.html</a></p>
<p>as a NJ resident who has been involved in college admissions since 2006, I can’t imagine where this information is coming from…</p>
<p>I personally know of MANY NJ kids with extremely high stats who have been rejected from UVA; in fact, the only kids I know that have been admitted are either recruited or legacy…</p>
<p>A 1300 SAT wouldn’t even come close…</p>
<p>UVA is considered one of the most difficult OOS publics to be admitted to from this person’s singular perspective…</p>
<p>edit: sorry if this is on the wrong thread, btw…I will copy and paste to the UVA one as well…</p>
<p>I can see both sides of the argument, but I don’t agree with this being the best solution to the issue.</p>
<p>As a poster previously stated, the state should focus on the K-12 schools in order to expand the number of Virginians with degrees. There are still many students who aren’t interested in attending college and to increase that number you can’t simply open more spots for Virginians and call it a day. You have to make the kids WANT to go to college first.</p>
<p>As for funding, I am not well versed in this area. If Virginia keeps cutting budgets for schools, not only are they hurting colleges, they are making students not apply to college because they feel they cannot afford it, which seems counter-productive to the goal this article states of boosting degrees in Virginia. The public universities need OOS students and I believe the state should encourage OOS students to come. The fact that he says there are too many OOS students is in itself flawed. </p>
<p>[UVa</a> - Enrollment by State](<a href=“http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/data_catalog/institutional/data_digest/enrl_state.htm]UVa”>http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/data_catalog/institutional/data_digest/enrl_state.htm)</p>
<p>Less than 500 students enrolled are from PA, NJ and just over 500 are from NY and MD. NY and MD outnumber PA and NJ, which are the states mentioned in the article. </p>
<p>As for the family, I cannot see how his scores simply qualify him. While I do not know UVA’s averages and all of that information, I don’t feel that just because they pay taxes and he is a good student that he should automatically be accepted. Not everything is based on just numbers. And not only that, the fact that it’s assumed that OOS students robbed him of his spot is ridiculous, considering just over 12,000 people came from Virginia, vs. a much lower number (around 2000) from all other 49 states combined.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine how VT feels about this (I would like to know). To have their own university be portrayed as unequal and worse in the article and to include a testimonial from a current student who feels VT was below him. VT, W&M, UVA, as well as all other Virginia schools are great institutions. Though these are just numbers, VT’s engineering program is ranked higher than UVAs. The student could have transferred out of VT if he didn’t like it, but instead he stayed there. He is a junior now, and I don’t see why the family decides to come out now and cry wolf. He could always go to UVA for graduate school if he really wanted.</p>
<p>REMEMBER: It is not where you get your education, it is what you do with it.</p>
<p>So as I’ve already warned you folks, I’m math challenged - but I just wanted to see approximately how much OOS tuition would have to rise in order to offset the proposed change from 35 percent to 25 percent OOS students at W&M. Assuming that the number of students remained constant at 6,000 undergrads, and that tuition stayed the same for in-state students (which it won’t), I come up with an additional $8,400 dollars per year per OOS student. So instead of paying the current $28,547 yearly tuition-only cost, OOS students would pay $36,947 (about $1400 less than the current cost of tuition at Harvard). That’s almost a 30 percent tuition increase for OOS students - and that’s not taking into consideration the millions less in taxpayer funds that W&M will receive this year and next. That shortfall will have to be made up somewhere. Think OOS tuition could go to $40K? </p>
<p>I suggest to delegates Hugo and Albo that W&M would effectively be pricing itself out of the market for many, if not most, OOS students - those same students who boost W&M’s student profile with standardized test scores above the median, and often above the 75th percentile. To say nothing of contributing geographic and cultural diversity to campus - something truly top schools must offer their students.</p>
<p>Also agree with others here about the undeserved dissing of Virginia Tech, JMU, Mary Washington, and others in Virginia’s heretofore admirable public college system.</p>
<p>Raising the percentage of in-state students is a terrible idea and everyone knows it. It is not going to happen. We need the funding, OOS students at W&M tend to be more qualified, and a school without any geographic diversity is less attractive to top in-state students.</p>
<p>I’m more worried about the plans to increase the number of students. W&M’s small size is an important part of its unique atmosphere, and we already have shortages of housing and certain classes.</p>
<p>What I don’t think these senators understand is that if out-of-state tuition rises any more without a significant increase in the amount of scholarship money available, out-of-staters won’t come to William and Mary or UVa. With room and board and living expense, full costs at W&M are just about $10,000 less than the costs at the most expensive private schools, without the promise of meeting financial need or reduced contribution from middle-income families. I really do like William and Mary, but why should I take out loans and ask my family for help to pay $45k a year when I can go to my own state school on a scholarship for absolutely free?</p>
<p>Everyone should keep in mind, regardless of where you stand on the argument, that out-of-state students bring far more to W&M than finances. They provide perspective, diversity, and talent that may not always be abundant in Virginia. Along with Virginians, they help raise the profile of W&M through their tremendous academic credentials. To respond to Malvenuto, out-of-state applicants are not more qualified than Virginia applicants. The are simply selected more selectively because there are fewer spaces for them available in our class. W&M’s Admission Office works hard to ensure that we are admitting the best applicants from Virginia and from outside of Virginia and the only real statistical difference between our Virginian admits and non-Virginian admits is a slight different in middle 50% standardized test scores.</p>
<p>If anyone is interested, W&M students just completed their annual Road to Richmond project and part of this year’s discussion was this very matter ([William</a> & Mary - W&M students deliver message in ‘Road to Richmond’](<a href=“http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2011/wm-students-deliver-message-in-road-to-richmond-123.php]William”>W&M students deliver message in 'Road to Richmond' | William & Mary))</p>
<p>What are the differences in the middle 50% SAT scores for IS vs OOS? (i.e., how ‘slight’ is the difference?</p>
<p>For the most part, out-of-state students hover more in the upper range of the SAT middle 50% and in-state students in the lower end of the range. Again, this is very general info. There are plenty of admitted in-state students whose SATs are on the high end of the range or above the top end of the range and there are admitted in-state students whose SATs are on the lower end of the range or below the low end.</p>