Do you think my app is competitve for VT?

blueiguana
Sun, 13 Jun 2010 08:44:24 +0000

Eagles,
No, you are reading it correctly. The Common Data Set is something that I believe all colleges are required to offer in the same format. It is so you can look easily ‘apples to apples’ at what each school considers in an applicant in order of importance. As you can see it also gives you more detailed information on applications received vs. offers made vs. student who accepted their offers. The information on SAT, ACT, and GPA is also more comprehensive.

Often on a schools website this information is given in different forms, and it is hard to determine what each school is looking at. This gives you a clearer picture. Look at the Common Data Set for another school you may be considering (google) and you may find they consider class rank and essays in the top two tiers, legacy in the highest tier, SAT/ACT scores in the second tier, etc. It helps you determine where you stand as a viable candidate at each school.

Keep in mind the date on the data. VTs is from 2009. Another school may have their most recent data available from 2008 and the trends of SAT/ACT, GPA, etc, may have inched up. What they are considering most important in applications will most likely have stayed the same.

I hope this helps.