A few years ago, Pitt announced a new AD. She was an attorney I believe and had come out of the compliance side of the house from another university.
I thought it strange at the tiime, I bet it becomes the norm going forward.
And you will see a new consulting practices start up at Deloitte etc. - athletic oversight and compliance monitoring.
“I don’t believe that to be true, at least I couldn’t find such an OOS on UVa’s website. And to me, a near 50% admit rate for legacies is more than a ‘tip’ (as it is 2x the admit rate for the masses).”
100% true. Been this way for decades at UVA. From the horse’s mouth:
“we plan to maintain our current model, in which out-of-state legacy applicants are treated as if they are Virginians. The offer rate for Virginians to the University was 44 percent this year, the non-Virginian offer rate was 24 percent. There is a significant advantage to being a Virginian in our review.”
You overlook the huge fact that in-staters (legacy or not) at UVA have an admit rate double that of OOS-ers.
So the tip being only for OOS-ers makes obvious sense. Imagine the blowback from telling some VA taxpayers that UVA is turning down their kids to give preference to other VA taxpayer kids. That would never fly.
@northwesty
https://admission.virginia.edu/faq
“Legacy status is acknowledged in our review process.”
Indeed, but the above statement only indicates how they handle OOS legacies. It that has absolutely nothing to do with how they handle instate legacy applicants. And in my cynicism with college spin, I think the omission is glaring.
Post 3375 correctly but perhaps unknowingly touches on what in my experience is the entire current problem with college admissions in the nation overall: NOT “lack of transparency” about the process; NOT Affirmative Action; NOT a so-called devaluation of academic merit, but sheer self-entitlement b**. This self-entitlement says two things:
Here is the actual Fact:
Not a single person “knows” the GPA’s of some or all of the students at that high school unless he or she has access to every transcript about which he/she is making claims and has viewed every one of those. Parents (of other students) often lie. Students even more often lie. Students also exaggerate, misunderstand, distort, or repeat a rumor of a rumor. In many high schools I am personally well acquainted with, it is an actual “activity” to deliberately mislead the competition in one of three ways:
a. Feign modesty (under-report one’s GPA). ** This is much more common than most parents realize; parents are continually fooled by this.**
b. Exaggerate (over-report one’s GPA) for intimidation purposes
c. This is for those with exceptional self-control…Maintain silence.
Even IF any parent not an employee of the school had full access to all transcripts, would he or she also have access to every single letter of recommendation? Extremely doubtful, since most of these are now sent electronically via Common App, and the parent in question would have to then additionally access every password to every Common App of every student at that high school. Further, increasingly some elite colleges are permitting a third recommendation, which sometimes comes from outside of the school.
@lookingforward has said this for so long that I admire her patience in continuing to have to repeat it: Unless you have within your eyesight the complete file of every student being considered, your “information” is essentially worthless. The colleges and universities being discussed on this thread are not auto-admit institutions, and thus there is no “absolute standard” which “qualifies” an applicant for admission. For these, for all the elites, and for a growing number of colleges, admission is comparative. That means – for anyone who considers himself or herself a math genius – the entire set must be compared. Within that set, even with equal/near-equal merit, will be a variety of majors the college needs to fill, a variety of **campus activities/b, and a variety of regions the college wants to include. With regard to the latter, how will anyone claim with a straight face that he or she has access to files of complete strangers in other States of the Union, never mind the world? Even USC is a national university.
I haven’t even touched on the value that certain essays can have in certain close contests (work as a tie-breaker, for example, because one essay illuminates or confirms the student’s profile better than another does). But that is also one of the about-dozen components adding up to Profile, and the “sum” is greater than the mere calculation of the parts. That is what is meant by the term “holistic.” I understand why linear thinkers have more of a problem with this than we “global” types do, but that is not a problem for the colleges to fix. It is a problem of understanding and acceptance. In other words, Merit =/= Numbers. Merit is much more comprehensive and is itself holistic, being an overall, qualitative assessment originating from both quantity and quality. Continuing…
Merit includes conquest of challenge. The challenge component could actually be called “numbers”-based, since it is itself a quotient, dependent on dividend and divisor. Example: in D2’s senior class, 18 applied to UCLA. Six of them, including my D, got in. Among the 12 not admitted were some with higher SAT scores than D. What did she have in greater quantity? Having overcome three major, major challenges in her life. (Not necessary to go into detail here.) In addition, she had many compensating achievements with quantitative markers – high-level awards and leadership – among those other achievements. Her GPA was 3.8 – darned good for someone with three diagnosed LD’s who refused all accommodations. Her other two challenges were far more severe than that, by the way.
@bluebayou @northwesty @sevmom I am an alum of UVA and both of my kids have utilized the Alumni Liaison Program (it changed its name, not sure if that’s what it is called now). Anyway, my D17 was admitted and attends. In 2016, when we attended the meeting, the previous director (now retired) said that OOS legacies were evaluated/treated as in-state. BUT, in 2018, at my S19’s meeting that policy was different and I specifically asked about it. OOS applicants are no longer treated as IS applicants. From my own anecdotal info, legacy doesn’t mean much at UVA (IS or OOS). S19 was WL and many classmate/friends of mine have had their IS and OOS legacies denied this year and last year. And, some of them are/were definitely competitive applicants. For better or for worse, things have changed.
We actually do have access to the highest and lowest GPA/test scores accepted to individual colleges from our school from any given year (no names, but it’s still TMI, if you ask me.) And yes, some are far below the average and you have to assume there’s something else going on there.
But that’s neither new nor illegal. What would be the point of reporting?
“Indeed, but the above statement only indicates how they handle OOS legacies. It that has absolutely nothing to do with how they handle instate legacy applicants. And in my cynicism with college spin, I think the omission is glaring.”
Apologies to the 95% of the board who doesn’t care about this.
@bluebayou, @sevmom – Sorry, but I tend to get annoyed when people throw stuff out with little thought or data back up.
I’m an out of state UVA alumni. I’ve had sit downs with the admissions liaisons from the UVA alumni association when several of my kids were applying. I know what they told me. @firstwavemom and I know what we are talking about.
As admissions have gotten more competitive, UVA may be dialing back a bit the tip that UVA gives to OOS legacies. It might not be quite as good as before (i.e. full IS standards). But not surprising. As legacy tips at all schools are getting dialed back as admissions get more competitive.
But UVA would be beyond moronic to try to give legacy tips to in-staters. Think about it. Can you imagine the political blowback if they gave some VA taxpayers (in-state legacies) a preference over other VA taxpayers? Especially since those in-state legacies are already getting the big tip of being in-staters. Which then provides the additional benefit of UVA’s lower in-state tuition? I really doubt that non-alumni state legislators (who might want their kids to attend UVA some day at that low tuition price) would ever stand for that.
Nearly 47% of legacies (IS and OOS) that applied in the 2018 admission cycle received admission. Most of those are IS-ers. Not really a big diff since the overall IS rate is 38%. Figure that UVA alumni kids are probably a pretty well qualified demo within the overall IS pool and so would be expected to admit at a higher rate.
The OOS admit rate was 21%. So that’s obviously where the big tip is. More than doubling your chances. That’s the kind of variance which is comparable to the 2-3X admit rate diff you see at private colleges doing legacy admissions.
Cheers.
PS – I hope you all picked UVA to win the national championship in your NCAA brackets. Because it is gonna happen. Wa-hoo-wa!!!
Back to the scandal. New indictment on money laundering. Colburns say they are innocent, son took SAT test unassisted and they didn’t know his test was changed… (um right)
I guess I’d feel better if someone actually said “yes I was wrong and I’m sorry” rather than all these not guilty pleas. Hope they throw the book at these guys.
Has UVA explicitly stated that legacy is not a consideration between in-state applicants?
So (and whoever “we” is), are these exactly two student GPA’s and test scores? They do not begin to give you sufficient information to draw conclusions.
And many schools use Naviance, which, if the school publishes the school’s scattergrams, provides all of the participating students’ GPA’s and scores. Still doesn’t tell you the entire story. Still. Relying on such data is insufficient, given that there are many more components than two.
In holistic, it’s the entire presentation. You dont have visibility to the whole app.
What’s legacy really have to do with the scandal?
We keep saying that, but apparently some are not interested in the facts.
Right, yes, that’s what I was saying. Accepting lower GPAs isn’t against the law, so there’s nothing to report. So, for instance, if a 2.7 GPA makes it into Brown, you know there was something else about that applicant they liked.
@firstwavemom This is the link for the admission liaison program. https://alumni.virginia.edu/admission The deans will meet with both OOS and IS legacies. An instate acquaintance met with them a few years ago. Her son was a double legacy that was denied. She was very angry. @northwesty My son is a UVA grad and I am a Virginia resident. I just don’t “throw stuff out with little thought.” I am conflicted about legacy preference for a public school.
Accepting lower test scores and gpa’s is not illegal, and it seems USC (and the other schools) still have them lined up and around the corner to get in.
With all due respect, no.
USC can admit all the students with lower stats they want, just don’t fall for the old “photoshopped head on a body while performing on an ERG” trick. 
The people accused of crimes in this scandal have money to pay for other consulting services as well:
Except for internal requirements, there was no need to fake the profiles or the pictures dressed up like athletes. The schools can admit anyone they want but now they (Stanford and USC, at least) are going to take back a little of the power the admissions office gave to the athletic office to recruit and admit any recruit. There is now going to be a review of the athletic ability of the recruits. I haven’t read anything that says the academics of the recruits will be reviewed.