Update: Got my final decision from The Ohio State University and was not admitted. This is another reason that has me puzzled about Virginia Tech, which is a better ranked engineering school.
@hsjunior1354 What were your stats? If your talking about the US News rankings, those are for grad school.
3.7 weighted gpa, 9 AP’s although my gpa was very upward trending, 3.27-3.5-4.14 and probably around 4.5 this year. Decent extracurriculars and a 1300 new sat. And I was on the undergraduate rankings on US news.
Your new sat score probably brought you down. As for the rankings, while they do show something, they are not everything.
@hsjunior1354 I have to be honest, your initial post made me very irate in a way I haven’t been in a while. Also, I haven’t read all 5 pages of posts, so I am probably wound up for nothing, but as I am sure many people have already pointed out, getting in OOS is an entirely different thing from getting in as a resident. In addition, there are specific regions that are that much more difficult to get in from, because of the number of high achieving applicants.
There are TONS of kids from the area we live in that have better stats that yours, and they didn’t get in. They would be VERY grateful if they had the opportunity you do, and so your ‘why is VT such a breeze?’ question is… irritating. If you don’t appreciate what an amazing opportunity it is, perhaps you shouldn’t go there, and open a spot for someone else that desperately wants in.
FWIW: Between my son and his 5 friends that applied to Tech/Engineering, they were accepted to: GA Tech, Ohio State, Purdue, Penn State, UVA, UT Austin, Cal Poly, Auburn, Arizona State, Florida State, Michigan State, and NC State. Not one of them got into Tech. That should tell you something.
And yes, I am a little bitter.
I find it rather amusing that folks from Northern Virginia perceive their kids to be alot more talented than the rest of the state - as they call it, “SOVA” (no one down here calls it that). An AP class is an AP class and EVERYONE takes the same test. It doesn’t matter if you took it in NoVA, or “SOVA” . I think what would be better worth your time is to find out the prospective majors of the kids who got in compared to who did not. There are clearly more competitive majors than others. I promise you that the general GPA of kids got into less competitive majors had lower “stats” all across the board, where the engineering/science candidates were higher. There are even some majors that Virginia Tech is actively RECRUITING (NOT engineering) - and even us dumb SOVA folks are being asked to take a look at these offerings. You are not the first parent on this board to suggest that NoVA kids are superior to the rest of the state, and I’m sorry your child did not get in. But there are smart, high achieving SOVA kids that didn’t get in to engineering either. My child, by the way, is an average SOVA student who just happened to be in one of the less competitive majors and got into VT whereas many of his classmates with higher stats did not. My child also planned on majoring in said major 4 years ago as a high school freshman and wrote in the essays about the great inspiration for the major/line of work.
@shermizzle the whole in state out of state debacle is interesting. these state schools all want out of state students. just like all the schools you listed were out of state (except uva) so being out of state there may have been a factor that helped them get admitted.
@AnneShirley my D got into VT from Nova and honestly I have never heard the term SOVA. As an editorial note, I received a BSN from Radford and a MS from Tech and I absolutely love southwest Virginia:) Congrats to you child! Virginia Tech is the bomb. Go Hokies!
This is getting really HEATED!!! Fight Fight Fight Fight! LOL Virginian civil war in the comments. But anyway, just a joke. But seriously, I think there are some “NOVA” parents who think they are better than the south and western portions of the state.
@AnneShirley That is not at all what I meant, and if it came off that way I do apologize.
I didn’t say, or suggest that NoVA kids are superior. I said there are a lot more of them, and that is a fact. It’s a numbers game. According to Tech, they make comparisons on a regional basis, apples to apples. In less populated areas, being in the top 10% puts a student in a small, elite group. In this this area, the collective top 10% across 20+ high schools, with 600+ kids in a class us a LOT of high achievers. The competition is much harder due to sheer numbers alone. As you said, both areas are taking the same AP/IB classes/tests/SATs, but it is much harder to stand out and shine when compared to 1,200 other kids with the same stats vs. when being compared to 100. That is before you layer in the TJ kids that are, by national rankings at least, superior.
TL;DR - there is a reason that admissions is reviewed regionally rather than the top grades/scores across the state. If they just took the top 10% across the state, higher population areas would have a distinct advantage.
I don’t dispute that the stats of less competitive majors were lower. That is a function of competition. What is the point of spending time to find out the majors of kids that did get into? A degree in engineering is a much higher goal than being a Hokie. (Can’t remember who I borrowed that sentiment from, but its dead on.)
I am really glad that your child not only knows what they want to do, but got accepted to their choice of school to do it. That is a really wonderful thing to have, which was my point to the original poster.
I think in state and oos has a lot to do with the process. My son in PA did not get into Penn State main campus with a 1400 SAT (760 math) and 3.8 GPA. Schools also look at how many in state acceptances they take from certain schools. Other students from my sons school with equivalent stats got into PSU Main.
My son did, however, get into VT for which he is grateful. He is an engineering major. That is why we encourage our kids to apply to colleges broadly. There is not an exact science to this.
And for what its worth, I have NEVER heard of, or used the term SoVA. I think that’s the DC people. 
Maybe it’s because of its location? It’s beautiful but not super easy to get in and out of by air? Possibly also the football team is a bit up and down; if they were more consistent they could grow in recognition. Plus: it’s known as being mainly competitive in engineering and not other majors. Their new neuroscience school can change that and maybe their other science programs. Business is growing in prominence, too. Their reputation will continue to grow and they’ll slowly start accepting fewer and fewer students.
Now I do have a question that I think will spark discussion for what it is worth.
My child got into VT from an “other than NOVA” high school. It is known for being rigorous. In our area anyway.
My sister lives in Loudoun County and loves to remind me that their high school is much more competitive than ours which is why my child got in, according to her.
Here is the odd thing. At Christmas I asked my nieces how midterms went. They said their high school had neither mid terms nor finals. I simply could not believe it. When I asked my sister she said they dropped those exams in Loudoun because it brought kids’ grades down. I found this to be quite odd.
I then went on the VA DOE website. They publish school data for every high school in VA. Their highly touted nova high school reported that a full 70% of seniors had a 4.0 or higher. At our non nova school we had 20% with a 4.0.
So I’m thinking “maybe NOVA kids really are more competitive”. But there was a hole in that theory. I then compared SAT scores and AP Pass Rates at each school. Ours were higher in BOTH cases.
So I suspect that grade inflation in some of the NOVA schools puts you at a disadvantage. If I, a parent can figure that out looking online, you know college admissions officers have it figured out.
Thoughts?
Biggest issue is we all use metrics we think are correct, but only the admissions people really know. We are all just guessing at a puzzle without all the pieces.
@Anne Shirley Ok, so I’m a Loudoun County student, and of course I was super happy when we found out (I want to say two years ago?) that we weren’t going to have midterms or finals. But I heard it was for another reason. It wasn’t about the grades, but it was because the exams weren’t helpful in that they didn’t help us remember material for that year. It just made us cram material last minute, instead of wholeheartedly understanding and digesting the course material. It just put a lot of wasted energy on the teachers and the students.
As for the competitiveness? I still believe NOVA students are more competitive. But are they smarter? No. Our NOVA culture and school system has made us competitive for better grades, which means more extra credit opportunities, test retakes, and more parents complaining how their kid isn’t getting all the attention that they “need” for a higher GPA. So yes, grade inflation does put us at a disadvantage because we think that if we do badly the first time on a test, it’s totally okay because we can retake. Students here just want the GPA boost, and when it comes to standardized testing, we freeze. Sure, we can study, but there’s no one we can go up to and beg and email incessantly for a higher score.
OMG. Life isn’t like that…
Having no midterms and finals seem like quite a disadvantage. College grades are bigly based on them (sorry had to use that word). My oldest child graduated a few years ago from uva and one class he took had exactly 4 grades. Two tests, the midterm and the final. So now I really do suspect this is a disadvantage for you folks. An A isn’t really an A When you have extra credit, retakes and most importantly no midterms or finals. In our non nova school if you fail its tough tiddlywinks.
Hope I don’t regret wading into the Nova geographic debate but… 
Whether you like it or not, the VA universities strive for some level of geographic diversity for in state students. We’ve had that confirmed by university admissions officers and heck, ask people actually IN the legislature and they will tell you that’s what they expect to see - hence the BIG deal that was made when UVa recently committed to adding a whole 100 seats to the freshman class in the future for Va students. And we’ve been told many times that if we moved a few counties further out from NoVa our kid would have an easier time getting into UVA. The fact is that NoVa high schools - like it or not - sends far more applicants to VT (and probably UVa) than other regions of the state. And by and large, because NoVA is such a competitive area, a majority of those students are pretty qualified. So it stands to reason that a student from NoVA could be turned down by VT when a student from another regions with dissimilar stats is admitted. Geographic diversity is alive and well. Hence the argument about admittances. And add to it that the CoE has been taking as 15% more students from OOS than VT as a whole enrolls from OOS, I can see why this is a debate.
No way am I going to dive into is this fair or not though…
I agree it is certainly true that all Virginia colleges strive for geographic diversity. However many parents on cc…not just for vt but uva…claim their kid can’t get into the colleges because they are all academically superior and that less qualified students from “rest of va” get their deserved spots.
I felt I needed to point out that grade inflation is also quite rumored, esp. In Loudoun. Infini girl pretty much confirmed it. So I suspect there are less "superior "students than maybe believed and blaming “less qualified” students in rest of va is a scapegoat. Its insulting to the rest of us and I pointed out that the sat, act scores and ap pass rate was higher at our non nova school despite not having as many As.
Do you watch Battle of the Brains! Great proof is when Cave Spring high school mops up the floor with their nova competitors.