My son plans to apply Early Action next year to VT and it’s near top of his list. Agree though – there’s nothing very ‘early’ about early action at VT. Is it the same every year?
NC State and UNC give their EA decisions in early Feb. and I thought that was late…
This is their second year of it. The hope is they continue to learn how to get through it faster. We all hoped they would release a week early or so this year. Which has ended up not the case.
Issue at virginia Tech is they seem to have decided to treat Early action as their main decision pool vs just those with the top applications. They almost need an Early action 1 in late January for top performers and then early action 2 for the rest. Regular decision has ended up being a look at the rest who couldn’t get their applications to us last year.
I always thought it would be Friday just cause they don’t want the phone calls that day or next. Hoping it may be Thursday though
@cbl1 dont you think many Big Universities use RD just to fill in the openings they need. Most don’t have ED so that is difference with VT. Maybe they should do it like UGA or USC and do EA and RD and they can defer more in EA
but we know that is what vt is doing. Using early action as their primary round of decisions. It alarmist makes regular decision misleading as it seems it is not but more a fill in the gaps admission.
Seems to me to be better descriptive of the process the early action should be split into 2. With some people who are highly qualified getting decisions in January (early decision) and some getting the February decision (which should be called regular admission). If they want to accept late applicAtions into January call it what it is for March (late decision).
Georgia actually released nearly 2000 acceptances early last week for their March regular decision. There is a lot of competition going on for best students and making them wait is a major disadvantage.
Yes, we attended admissions session last year and they made it VERY clear they want you to apply EA.
Also agree they are putting themselves at a disadvantage by not having any decisions come out before end of February. Seems unusual for a public school (lots of privates wait til March for RD and don’t have EA – only ED)
VT not being on Common App is another quirk. They clearly have a pretty unusual admissions approach! Still, my S loved his visit there so we’ll see. . .
What is the twitter for the virginia tech
The late notification has changed my DS rankings of his top three schools. The “Early” Action is definitely not early. VT used to be his favorite school. Now with Purdue acceptance (and awesome communication with future parents and students) and Ohio State offering merit, VT is no longer the front runner. He has known about OSU since Thanksgiving and Purdue since mid-January. That’s a long time for kids to get pumped up about those schools compared to VT. I don’t know why it’s taking them so long. It’s my understanding that at least we’ll know if we get a merit offer when they notify us of the decision. Can anyone confirm that?
@FollowMeToVT is the twitter account
My son is in a similar situation with Penn State and Clemson. He heard from both by EOY 2019 and has been waiting for a long time for VT.
In my opinion, the schools that at least have a rolling admissions for their top students will help maintain the top-tier students at VT. Otherwise, like you said, the wait tends to lose the luster. It took Penn State 2 days to send my son an acceptance. :-/
I don’t think VT offers merit like many other state universities so if you are waiting you may be disappointed.
They definitely don’t, although they do administer a ton of 3rd party scholarships, so there could be some of those getting passed out.
@HokieCrazy we are same. In at two of his top 3; UMass Isenberg and Clemson. Waiting on Bentley which does not have EA - that is March 15! and then VT. At this point its kind of anti climatic for us so we won’t be “helping to meltdown portal” on 2/21. But for those who have VT as their number one I agree that a rolling admit for the top tier would be smart. My son has one other school that was a “maybe” but they do not release until the end of March - a smaller LAC which at this point we have no interest in for several reasons but among them the annoyance that they are so late in letting kids know (lol).
There’s already a system for students who have VT as their #1 - Early Decision.
Yeah, but the point is that for students that are applying to a bunch of pretty similar schools, with no clear-cut #1, I believe VT is losing some of those students to other programs just because they get their Early Action decisions earlier. VT’s Early Action is only 2 weeks before their RD. They need to work on that. And for students that are OBVIOUS acceptances, they’d be better off just accepting them as soon as they know.
VT needs to find a way to get one of the early action rounds out in January.
Agree. They should either do away with ED or maybe move up the dates ED -10/15 and EA Nov 1st VT has become so popular even with OOS that kids will get their applications in when they need to.
I’m all for ED - I think they should have the round where kids commit early. I think for EA the final needs to be done by the first week of February and in mid-January they should send out a special acceptance day for those highly qualified and not make them wait.
2 weeks between EA and Regular decision just makes no sense.
100% agree! A large portion of comparable schools release the EA by the end of January and begin “courting” the accepted students. The delay on VT’s part may cause students likely to choose Tech to commit to other schools.