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</p>
<p>there is absolutely no logic to your conclusion.</p>
<p>"I put all my eggs in that U-Va. basket,‘’ said Lee Seidner, of Fairfax County, who boasted a 3.99 GPA, 1300 on his SAT, eight Advanced Placement classes and a range of activities from National Honor Society to jazz band. “I felt I was qualified.” </p>
<p>Lee is out of touch with what is required to get admitted to UVA. My sons graduated from Fairfax near Chantilly HS. With the new grading system, S2’s graduating class had over 100 students with GPA greater than 4.0. Chantilly’s class size was ~700, if students had similar gpa that would be around top 14% of the class. and with SAT of 1300, UVA would have been a reach. Except for athletes and URM, no one from my sons high school got accepted that were not at least the top 10%. Lee is GPA and SAT are good but there are just too many more applicants that are more qualified for UVA, even if UVA increase enrollment or reduce the number of OOS.</p>
<p>Just checked, and turns out Albo is a UVa alum (Econ. '84). Hugo is an alum of W & M ('86), so they are familiar with the schools in question. I suspect they constantly get harangued by constituent parents who are not up to speed on the current college admission climate. (And, perhaps, the Delegates could use a primer as well, since they may not yet have kids going through the admissions process.) Also, being next door to North Carolina, the Delegates probably hear plenty about UNC’s 18% cap on OOS, so Albo and Hugo may think 25% OOS is a generous number.</p>
<p>I suspect all these constituent parents know is their kids have “close to a 4.0 GPA,” and have an SAT score that was “good” by the standards in place when the parent was going through the process eons ago. Also, these complaining constituents are in Fairfax County, where many high schools schools “rank” all students with a weighted 4.0 or better “1st in their class,” even if there are 50 kids with a 4.0 (maybe this has changed with the new grading scale and the new weighting). Unfortunately, they and their kids may not have good access to counselors “in the know” to advise them on the new world of college admissions.</p>
<p>Another issue in Fairfax Co., it seems to me, is that the top colleges are well aware of Thomas Jefferson, and there is a presumption that the best and the brightest students in Fairfax are at TJ. Accordingly, the percentages accepted to UVa and W & M from other Fairfax high schools may be somewhat lower than from other jurisdictions with limited or no access to TJ. </p>
<p>Bottom line, though, most of the really “top” students in Virginia interested in attending UVa or W & M, have that opportunity. And, fortunately for Dean J and her colleagues, most Virginia high school students have a pretty good idea whether they are competitive for the top Virginia colleges and structure their application list appropriately. That’s why the number of instate applications are significantly fewer than OOS, and the acceptance rate so much higher.</p>
<p>AVA, spot on with your insights about then vs. now regarding admissions. It doesn’t make sense to some parents who many years ago saw themselves or their hs classmates, all of their high schools’ “smart kids”, those with SATs of mid 1200s+ and valedictorian with nothing higher than a 4.0, have no problem getting into UVA and WM. These are the very people who are driving politicians like Hugo and Albo to push this bill. </p>
<p>I succumbed to curiousity and read some of the rebuttals to the article online. (some of the posts were actually really great- restored my faith in education a bit for that source of discourse). Along with the other replies, I saw this one from Delegate Hugo (I guess it was legit…but he REALLY needs to do a spellcheck/grammar check- see “their” for “there”…“insure” for “ensure”…not good enough for a WM grad- sorry). Thought I would pass it on.</p>
<p>delthugo wrote:
Delegate Albo and I, along with many of our colleagues have long been concerned about the many highly qualified Virginia students being rejected in favor of non-Virginians at certain Virginia public colleges and universities.</p>
<p>The presidents of UVA, W&M, JMU, and Virginia Tech contend that their is little ability to further raise the tuition on out-of-state students.</p>
<p>But, out of the top 32 schools in the nation; January’s Kiplinger Report lists five Virginia schools as "best public schools in the country…FOR OUT OF STATE STUDENTS.'</p>
<p>[Kiplinger.com](<a href=“Best College Values, 2019 | Kiplinger”>Best College Values, 2019 | Kiplinger)=ALL&id=none&sortby=out_rank&sortorder=ASC#colleges</a></p>
<p>In fact, William and Mary and UVA even made the top ten list for best values for out of state students.</p>
<p>William and Mary and UVA consider their peers to be the “Ivy League”, yet, they price like many other public schools in the nation. This pricing structure is to the detriment of our Virginia children and our families.</p>
<p>As for the other “Public Ivy Schools”, they average over 80% in-state students.</p>
<p>The policies of William and Mary, UVA, VaTech, and JMU are forcing too many highly qualified Virginia students to be kicked across the border.</p>
<p>We should work together to insure that 75% of these slots are reserved for Virginia students.</p>
<p>Delegate Tim Hugo
1/30/2011 2:36:15 AM</p>
<p>I’m putting the quote to which I’m responding below just so it doesn’t show up in searches and appear to be my quote.</p>
<p>This was perpetuated by a dean at a particular university years ago. UVa does not share this thinking at all We have students from every public school in northern Virginia (and probably from virtually ever public high school in the state). There are plenty of excellent students who opt not to go to TJ because it doesn’t fit their style and academic interests. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
I don’t where this comes from. We overlap with other state schools, several strong privates, and maybe a couple Ivies. SHEV publishes a list of our peers, based on research. Perhaps the legislature isn’t aware of this page on the SHEV website.</p>
<p><a href=“http://research.schev.edu/peergroups/listpeers_fouryr_rbc.asp?code=1&abbrev=UVA[/url]”>http://research.schev.edu/peergroups/listpeers_fouryr_rbc.asp?code=1&abbrev=UVA</a></p>
<p>I can see both sides of this issue- in my home state of PA, the competition to get into Penn State has gotten much harder in recent years, and part of that is that applications from out of state raise the quality of the overall applicant pool. This increase in selectivity raises the reputation of the school, which in turn results in more increase in the quality of the applicant pool. Also, as college costs go up, the attraction of a school like Penn State for in-state students increases, especially for those who would not qualify for need-based aid.</p>
<p>I can imagine that something similar has gone on with U Va, William and Mary, and other great VA schools. Having those highly qualified out of state applicants in the pool makes admission harder for in-state, but at the same time raises the reputation of the school. So highly qualified VA students have the opportunity to get what is almost an IVY-level degree at a public school price; on the flip side those who are not as highly qualified have to go to a less selective school, unless they choose to go out of state.</p>
<p>Just curious, among Virginians on this board, after UVA and William and Mary, which are considered the next best VA publics?</p>
<p>When looking at public universities, it’s hard to judge them as a whole. Va Tech has the best engineering school in the state, hands down. UVA’s engineering is ok, but not as outstanding. UVA tends to excel in business, religion, history - those types of things. I have a friend whose son is having a wonderful experience as a math major at William and Mary. I do believe that JMU has some up-and-coming programs. Each university has programs that need to be looked at individually.</p>
<p>I know Va Tech’s architecture program is top-notch, but don’t hear much about that program at UVA. How does it compare?</p>
<p>All of these schools are excellent. I am not going to get into a discussion of engineering at UVa vs. Tech. That’s been done in a very lengthy, thorough thread. If that is your interest, you might want to search for it. It’s many pages long. </p>
<p>The A school is highly respected.</p>
<p>If you like rankings, [here’s</a> a recent article](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=26]here’s”>http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=26) and [here</a> are some other rankings](<a href=“University of Virginia School of Architecture - Wikipedia”>University of Virginia School of Architecture - Wikipedia).</p>
<p>I’m a father of two, one a freshman in college, one a sophomore in HS; we live in VA. Our older son applied to UVA and got in, however he chose to study oos (based on a scholarship he received).</p>
<p>Via friends/neighbors, we learned that VA is not really the best state to live in when it comes to financial support for college-students. Compared to GA, for example, we are doing extremely poorly in VA; with the HOPE scholarship, GA residents basically have a free-ride at their public schools (provided some grade-requirements are met). </p>
<p>As a consequence, public GA colleges probably have to accept more in-state students and meet a higher in-state quota than the VA schools (UGA: 2010 freshmen: 86% GA residents, GATech interestingly only 61.3%). to compare: UVA 69.1% in-state (in 2008).</p>
<p>Thinking of the case in this thread: if the state subsidized UVA more (substantially more, I’d say) to keep the tuition & R&B cost low for in-state students, then yes, I would agree with the idea to increase the share of in-state students. As of today, however, I would say that this is NOT justified … The colleges all fight a tough cost-battle these days, and as long as the in-state subsidies don’t increase substantially I can’t imagine UVA to increase their in-state share - and rightly so! </p>
<p>On a different note: I think it’s good that UVA is quite selective! Our kids HAVE to get used to some competition, and I think a rejection doesn’t hurt all that much! There are plenty of good schools in VA, and let’s face it, a 1300 on the SAT is not really stellar … (PS: my son had 1600/2390 and got a few rejections, too - they were painful, yes, but healthy!)</p>
<p>Virginia Tech’s undergrad enginering school is ranked the number 13 engineering school in the country of all schools that have a doctoral program. UVa is ranked lower in engineering. Both are good programs though, had one son at UVa engineering and now one at VT engineering.
The undergrad architecture program at Virginia Tech was ranked number one by DesignIntelligence (tied with Harvard,Yale, and Columbia). Virginia Tech’s Lumenhaus placed 1st in an international competition in Madrid recently.
Virginia Tech’s dining services are also very highly rated (1 or 2 recently).
Virginia has many very good schools! For this kid and his mom to complain about his plight of having to go to Virginia Tech is actually pretty ridiculous. I’m sure there are many kids who would be happy to take his spot at Virginia Tech.</p>
<p>eml2505, I am glad UVa is moving back to early action next year. My son applied ED in 2005. Had there been no ED (or ea), he would have definitely had to apply to other schools out of state and may have gotten and taken merit money elsewhere. UVa was the best fit for him so glad we had the early option. I do think that bringing back an early option will keep more high achieving kids instate. I think tuition at UVa for instate kids is a bargain (and we were full pay).</p>
<p>UVA seemed to offer more opportunities for study outside of the engineering curriculum. There are many student from our area who were accepted to both UVA and JMU; many of them choose to attend JMU. JMU offers a number of scholarships for students entering the STEM fields and that may be part of the draw. For many students, it is about fit. If they are active in marching band and wish to continue with it in college, then they will probably choose JMU. I’m sure there are countless other examples.</p>
<p>sevmom, I agree about EA being a good thing. We cast a wide net that we wouldn’t have had to if we knew for certain how things would play out at UVA.</p>
<p>Sabaray, You are exactly right about the Virginia schools and fit. Have seen examples myself of kids choosing JMU over William and Mary, VT over UVa,etc. Both VT and UVa have great engineering programs,just different. UVa son is gainfully employed so that’s always good! Good luck to your daughter,sabaray!
About ED/EA, I would run into parents after ED was abolished-parents whose kids would have gladly done ED or EA and be done with it.The kids were throwing out applications all over the place (places like Georgetown,Duke=not exactly known for great merit aid). The parents were nervous about paying if their kid got accepted to these kinds of schools, the parents were paying unnecessary application fees, the kids were needlessly stressed,etc. So glad there is now going to be an EA option.</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>My daughter was one of 2 OOS accepted as a mid-year transfer (on scholarship). We were grateful that UVA saw her merit because the top schools in Maine (Bowdoin, Colby) rejected her in favor of OOS applicants. If she had not been from Maine, I believe she would have been accepted (she loved UVA so it all worked out in the end). I would wager there are many smart students from Virginia at these Maine schools! My son is a junior and I do not know if I am rested enough for another application year…:)</p>
<p>A couple of the posters seem to imply that someone with 1300’s SATs or less need not bother to apply? Does U VA only admit “stellar” students? USNWR reports a mid-50% SAT of 1230-1400 - I would have thought a 1300 SAT would be right in the mid-range?</p>
<p>
Uva would be considered “highly selective” by many students. Last year, there were about 22,500 applications for a first year class of just over 3,300.</p>
<p>deleted post - deferring to Dean J :)</p>
<p>still confused about that SAT range- where 1300 seems to be right in the mid range–Dean J can you comment?</p>
<p>Hi,sabaray, Just curious about your earlier post about the JMU marching band(that most kids would probably choose JMU if they want to continue in college). I know that UVa and Virginia Tech also have good marching bands. Is there something about the JMU band that draws kids there?</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 - Enrollment by State</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>