No. It has to accept more than 3 times of available space. Acceptance rate shall over 50%.
Would love to know how many they admit to get 1775 to accept
In 2013 we were told they had 7200 applicants for 1800 positions.
http://ir.vt.edu/data/student/admissions.html
Go to VT IRR website under Facts & Figures / Student Data / Applications & Enrollment / By college and it shows the offers, acceptances, GPSs. by year and major.
I talked to an admissions officer on a Virginia Tech visit and he said the engineering acceptance rate was only 20-25 %
The problem with the 20-25% acceptance rate, is that it doesn’t match what’s in VT’s official data. They don’t yet have the data up for 2016 (and will not for 2017, until next year).
For the college of engineering, Fall 2015:
Applied: 7,030
Offered: 5,262
Enrolled: 1,744
Acceptance rate: 75%
Yield: 33.1%
“This year we received 10,600 applications for 1,775 available spaces.”
Lets say they still want to enroll 1,775 students and they got 10,600 applications. Also, lets say the yield stays the same (even though I think it would drop, due to an increase in OOS applications).
To keep the say yield and 1,775 enrolled students, you need to make offers to 5,262 students (like in 2015).
If you had 10,600 applications, then your acceptance rate would be 49.6%. That’s a huge drop from 75%, but still no where near 20 to 25%.
However, if you look at the % of applicants that end up enrolling, you come out to about 17%.
Now, if you improve yield, then your acceptance rate could be lower. If the (planned) yield was 40%, then they would only need to accept 4,438 students ( 42% acceptance rate). If the yield was 50%, then the acceptance rate could be 33.5%. But we know the yield (which has dropped from 36% in 2006 to 33% in 2015), isn’t likely higher than 33% to 36%. VT is using a planned or predicted yield to come up with the number of students it should accept.
I just can’t come up with a way that VT’s has a 20 to 25% acceptance rate, that makes sense based on past history (as provided by VT). Perhaps they are including grad students? Transfer students? :-??
But back to the original question.
We know that what drives acceptance rate, is the number of applications and the predicted yield rate. Keep in mind that VT has a very large engineering program (it’s enrolling 1,775 freshman, and it’s been ranked 3rd, behind only UIUC and GT in the number of engineering BS degrees awarded each year.
To fill it’s slots, it has to keep it’s acceptance rate higher (than most of it’s peers). If GT only received 7K or 10K applications, it’s acceptance rate would also be much higher. In fact, only 3 to 5 years ago Georgia Tech’s acceptance rate was in the 50% range (which is comparable to VT engineering).
VT has publicly stated they want to increase the number of students in CoE. They’re cutting the number of internal transfers into that school, which presumably means they’re trying to shut off the stream of students out of other majors which is hurting those majors. So to build up the CoE with new students you’re obviously looking at increasing yield and looking for qualified transfers. Will be interesting to see what steps they take to address this. They’re enrolling a higher % of OOS engineers than instate (upper 40% range OOS), seems like looking harder at instate students who want to stay in VA paying instate prices a place to start as well as increasing financial aid.
I believe @123Mom456 is spot on. Not using the common app definitely tempers the overall number of applications that the school receives. So many kids now apply to 10+ schools with just a click of a button and maybe adding a short essay. It does take extra effort to add VT to the school list, especially for OOS kids who are casting a wide net. And VT is not unhappy with that.
@NJProParent they are already taking a MUCH greater % of OOS kids in engineering, they really can’t afford to take it that much higher - like 50%+ - or they will attract the attention of the legislature. Ask UVa how much they like the legislature trying to micromanage them lol. They are turning away a lot of highly qualified in state CoE applicants, GC’s are seeing it and getting a bit frustrated.
And yet, VT had a record number of applications this year, like many highly respected schools. But this last year, being the transition year between the old and new SAT, VT decided (only one of two universities) to not accept the old SAT test scores. That made it more difficult for some kids who had already taken the old SAT once or multiple times and, thinking they were done with standardized testing, than had to choose between taking an additional new SAT test or not applying to VT. I know quite a few students who were in that quandary. Combine that with not using the common app., and it acts to depress applications.
@JustGraduate, you are right. One of the problems in managing a public U in Virginia. Probably a reason why president Sands wants to expand the University by 5000 seats in the coming years.
I know this is a reach but I feel that Ga Tech will move back to their own college application and away from the common app. I feel this way because many smart in-state students (4.0 GPA, Above 1400 New Sat, Above 2000 Old SAT) are getting rejected from Tech. Since Tech is the only major engineering school in Georgia, many people are becoming unhappy. As a result, there is a growing movement in-state to move away from the common app in order to reduce out-of-state applicants. Another possibility is that Ga Tech will reduce their out-of-state admissions from 30% to 10% like UNC.
@Mahindra, that would be an interesting turn of events, as it seems GT is quite proud in having another year of a record number of applications of ever-more highly qualified students, and a record low acceptance rate. UNC’s 10% OOS admissions makes many qualified OOS students think twice in applying.
@hsjunior1354 Acceptance rate is only part of the picture as others have said. They also take about 60% of kids through ED so it’s usually a self-selecting group. High GPA’s, etc. Of those accepted, 77% of Gpa’s are 3.75 plus, 15% are 3.5-3.74, 6% are 3.25-3.5. surely a group of very smart hard working kids! (this is random but I know they recruit heavily for lacrosse as well).
Congratulations on your acceptance! You should feel great about it 
I’m not sure how much the low OOS state rate hurts the NC tech schools, their apps are doing fine and not having trouble filling those classes. And frankly OOS NC prices are not bad at all, less than OOS VA, which is less than OOS PA etc.
Full disclosure - son got in EA to NCState engr (as well as other OOS engr) but didn’t get into VT CoE instate, just made wait list for that. Had to get in w 2nd choice and transfer. into CoE . Maybe another bit anecdotal evidence that VT’s instate CoE acceptance rate is curiously low
@JustGraduate I was only talking about unc.
This seems counter-intuitive to me as the first and second sentences conflict with each other. Likewise, I wouldn’t expect the number of transfers to put a significant dent in any particular major. Do you have additional information?
…it’s not at all clear what a relevant Google query would look like. I tried some various ideas but found nothing.
@fragbot My understanding is the issue with internal transfers has been that they are concentrated in coming from a handful of majors. And those majors are being pretty significantly hurt by the exodus, especially when the students come in with no intention of being in that major. So increasing CoE numbers at the expense of other majors is not something that has been deemed as good for VT as a whole. I certainly could be wrong but that was the talk several years ago when they first started talking about cutting back internal transfers.
VT wants to increase total enrollment by ~5000. Don’t know what part of that is pegged to CoE. It’s a good bet that the are considering how to increase their yield and probably how to increase instate enrollment (which may or may not be related to yield).
@JustGraduate – Physics, math, chemistry?
@fragbot have just heard speculation about which majors might be more affected nothing at all from VT. Personally I’d guess Physics as one but that’s not because I’ve heard anything, just my logic (which could be completely off base)