Just got deferred as an in-state student. Must say I was very surprised at the decision, considering the high acceptance rate (47%) for in-state students at UVA. UVA was one of my top choices, and I am very disappointed that I didn’t get in the first time.
My mid year report is all A’s in 2 dual-enrollments, 1 AP, and 1 honors class. I believe that my essays and recommendations were pretty good, and I have a good amount of extracurriculars (including 4 leadership positions).
Any guidance or past experiences would be much appreciated regarding deferrals in the regular decision pool.
Forgot to add - I’m #1 in my class of 200 at a public high school, SAT score well above the UVA 75th percentile, and weighted GPA well above 4.3 (UVA average).
Four classes seems very little since most students take 7 classes.
I was under the impression there was no ranking in Northern VA.
I think you are expected to continuously challenge yourself academically senior year.
All you can do at this point is submit your mid year grades.
That will be the deciding factor in regards to admission.
Realize your application will now be compared with those applying Regular Decision.
Be prepared to have alternate options to choose from if you don’t get an acceptance at UVA.
@exoheat11 From what I know, it’s very competitive to get into UVA from Northern VA. Really, I think from reading UVA’s admission blog that they only defer to see your mid year grades, like @raclut said. They’re not interested in other information. Then again, I’m only another applicant.
What I would do is keep in mind that you were deferred. While you’re not a first-choice candidate (factoring in your geographical location), you still are of interest to UVA. Also, in the blog post below, Dean J says this:
"People inevitably ask me for stats about the defer pool. I don’t have data to cite a trend, but I can say that residency will still be a major factor, with more deferred students from Virginia getting offers in Regular Decision. School choice and the size of the pool are also factors. "
“94.6% of admitted students were in the top 10% of their high school class
This number only reflects those who attend schools that report rank.” (For EA this year)
“Early Action Testing/Rank (offers only)
Middle 50% OLD SAT score: 2020-2290
Middle 50% NEW SAT score: 1350-1500
Middle 50% ACT composite: 31-34
We use scores from each section in our review, but the reports on averages generate totals.”
"Early Action Offers
Overall offers: 5,914
Total VA offers: 2,575 (47% offer rate)
Total OOS offers: 3,339 (22% offer rate)
Schools admit more students than the enrollment goal with yield in mind.Yield is how many students accept an offer of admission. Check out yield from past years, broken down by residency (these numbers are for the entire applicant pool, not just early action).
Early Action Defers
Overall defers: 5,458
Some applicants will withdraw, so these numbers will go down!"
They don’t take all deferred applicants but they must be taking some.
As a Fairfax County resident I will say UVA is very popular over here and usually each high school in this area will have a bunch of students applying to this school. It used to be that if the student was in the top 10% of their graduating class they had a good chance. If there are numerous students applying from your high school your profile is being compared to theirs. I don’t think there is very much you can do at this point accept turn in your mid year grades.
If there are any updates for example any recognition or awards you receive in the meantime I would let them know.
If this school is your first choice you may want to talk to your guidance counselor and maybe they can convey that to admissions. (The student will most likely attend if an acceptance offer is made)
At the same time the number of applicants keeps increasing each year. They have more then enough applicants that are well qualified to attend but they cannot accept everybody.
Which school at UVA did you apply for? Art & Sciences? Engineering?
@raclut I attend school in the PWC/Manassas area, and I don’t think there are that many applying regular from my school.
However, there were around 20 students that applied early from my school, and only 3 or so got accepted. The rest were rejected. They were all pretty strong candidates.
I applied to Engineering, so I know it’s an uphill battle. I do think that my mid year grades ( all A’s in classes listed above) would help my case.
I think I might’ve gotten deferred because of extenuating circumstances my first semester of junior year. I explained this in my common app essay. However, before and after that semester, I have been an all A student.
Engineering is very competitive. Did you participate in any science or engineering competitions? They take a lot of kids from TJHSST that have a strong STEM background. I recommend also looking at Virginia Tech.
In general, the statistics on deferrals I’ve seen just say that somewhere around 25% get deferred both in and out of state. However, I did recently see an article that seemed to say the rate of getting in after deferral was about 21% overall. Not sure how accurate this is, and I have no idea what the in state/out of state difference might be.
As the overall admit rate is about 30%, this implies that getting in after a deferral is somewhat less likely than getting in overall, but certainly possible.
@Wilson98 thank you for your reply! I read the same about the 21%. Dean J did mention that residency would still be a factor, so my guess is that the percentage for in state might be higher.