Hello,
I am wondering what the minimum GPA is for freshmen admission at UVA, at least for students from Northern Virginia public high schools?
Thank you.
While there really is no cutoff, I’d recommend having above a 3.8 UW. The average gpa from my school is a 3.83 and this includes heavily recruited athletes. With that being said, I’m out of state so the numbers might be different. Also, this post should be moved from ACT Prep to the Virginia thread.
Do you have access to Naviance for your school? That should give you a better idea. For our school it is well over a 4.25 weighted on average with very very few under a 4.0 weighted. Lots of data for the NoVa schools.
I too would recommend using Naviance. It appears to be about 4.2, 4.3 weighted for my NoVa school
There is literally no cut off. GPAs are erratic and do not give us the full story. Grading and GPA methodologies vary so much that it would be completely unfair to have a cut off.
Also, remember that we are a state full of people who have moved around a lot. We have so many students who have multiple schools on their transcripts.
More:
http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2015/03/i-dont-care-about-your-gpa.html
http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-gpa-is-meaningless-without-context.html
I am looking at the UVA scattergrams for my kid’s VA school, and the acceptances cluster around the same, fairly high GPA level, while the range of SAT/ACT scores of accepted students is much wider. I see a few exceptions, but it is quite clear that high GPA is very important, especially coming from NoVA that produces many highly qualified applicants.
These exceptions bear out Dean J’s statement that there is really no cutoff. But no one should count on being an exception.
Scatergrams are plotting the results of a more elaborate review on two axes. They show correlation, but not causation.
We use the courses and grades on the transcript in our assessment. Remember that you can have students at a school with identical GPAs and different coursework and grades. You can have a student who gamed the system by loading up on H/AP courses in one or two areas, but has never touched advanced work in others get the same GPA as someone who has looked for challenges in all of their core areas. The transcript tells the story that the GPA doesn’t.
Also keep in mind that there are no admission decisions under the new system yet.
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@“Dean J” - what do you mean by “no admission decisions under the new system yet.”? What new system? thank you - maybe I misunderstood something.
@hcmom65 - Scattergrams plot decisions on two axes, GPA and test scores. The test scores being used in your school’s charts have to be from last year, so they aren’t on the same scale as the current SAT. Sorry I didn’t spell that out better!
@“Dean J” Thank you!
Where are these scatter grams?
@NDreams , What if you have a 3.73 gpa and your out of state?
@Formation, many high schools have a career and college counseling product called [url=<a href=“https://www.naviance.com/%5DNaviance%5B/url”>https://www.naviance.com/]Naviance[/url] (aka Family Connections), made by a company called Hobsons. Scattergrams in Naviance show users past admission decisions for students from their school, plotted on a graph that uses GPA and SAT scores as the only variables.
Those charts are what lead some people to believe admission decisions are based on just those two variables.
@“Dean J” Reading these scatterplots I am even more stressed. For many of the schools I am interested in no students form my school have been accepted into.
Most students were only accepted into community colleges. Does this put me at a disadvantage?
Formation: My son was admitted from a rather mediocre urban public high school. You will be considered based upon your own merits, and not judged against other applicants from your school or the perceived quality of your high school.