<p>Our classes have progressively grown bigger every year, and they have grown stronger. My class in particular is very competitive, I’m 50th/400. So far 57 have applied, and I know there are more. 50 applied last year out of a class of 350(ish, I think). I’m worried I won’t be accepted because of this ranking, although I feel my application is strong.</p>
<p>Any insight would be great! (I got my statistics from Naviance)</p>
<p>Thanks for posting! Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out if maybe they accept more from some schools than others. Seeing as my school’s first year was a rough one, there were only 3 accepted. I’m just hoping that this upward trend will continue and that they’ll accept more from my school. We’ll see though.</p>
<p>Though most students assume it, you are not competing with your classmates for admission here. We have no data about how many students from a school have applied when we are reading an application. Obviously, there are some large high schools that are always going to send us a slew of applications.</p>
<p>We do not ready by territory here. We read randomly.</p>
<p>Dean J: You note, “We have no data about how many students from a school have applied when we are reading an application.” Are you referring to in-state only with this comment? “Data” is not the issue here; human beings are the issue, as it is what is in the head of the human beings that moves offers one way or the other. Clearly, Virginia has admissions officers who cover specific states or urban regions and these officers are the first stop in the reading process. It is hard to believe that an officer who covers say, Arizona, and who reads all the Arizona apps is not going to become biased and cautious about giving too many offers to a narrow group of schools, however wonderful their applicants. As Obama says, such reader is far more likely to “spread the wealth” when it comes to offers; all things being equal, the reader will give the nod to an applicant from a new school rather than to the 8th or 9th admit from yet again the same school. I know admissions officers pound the table and say, no no no, this is not what happens, but the scenario I just painted is all too human for it to be not all too true.</p>
<p>Multiple readers read an application, one person is not the soul decision maker. Also, for the sheer number of applications that come through, in no way can an admission officer think to themselves “gee, I’ve already said yes to eight other applications from this school, therefore this application should get a no”. It’d be way too hard for someone to remember that. And lastly, they don’t read by areas anyways. The chance of a reader getting a large number of applications from one school is low. Many schools have the same names anyways.</p>
<p>The human mind is terrible at short term memory under stress. Remember that when you enter college ;)</p>
<p>Clearly, I know what schools from around the world send us applicants, but the number of applicants from a given school does not come up at all when I’m making a recommendation for an application.</p>
<p>Thank you Dean, for the comment. The real question is whether a Regional reader (not the Dean), who is the first point of contact for an application, will read an application and say to herself, “I remember seeing and recommending better applicants from this school this year so, by comparison, this applicant is denied.” If the reader did not do this, probably 50% of the class at Andover or Exeter would be accepted at UVA, leaving few slots available for OOS public school candidates. UVA KNOWS what it is getting when it admits Andover or Exeter – it can never quite be sure with so many other schools – yet I doubt that UVA admits all it could from Andover or Exeter, preferring to make implicit in-school comparisons (even if the applications are read randomly).</p>
<p>Why would they even do that (and they dont)? They would want the strongest class possible, so they will take the top people. Just because people go to a top school doesn’t mean they are the top students in the entire application pool. Often times, when you combine a lot of top students, many of them get a little washed out in recommendations by others, which would explain why not a lot of people there get accepted.</p>
<p>Placido - UVA dosen’t even have regional reps. There is a pile of applications and the Deans take 1 app out a time and read it. The OOS and IS apps are in the same pile as well.</p>
<p>They have Deans that cover different regions around the world. So, hence they have regional reps. </p>
<p>Adcoms for colleges have been going through the admissions process for many many years and in the end it all works out. Just relax and let them do the their job. Believe it or not they really do know what they are doing. You can try to analyze this process all you want, but the bottom line is UVa reads holistically and are building a class. S1 and S2 attend and they have met individuals just on their floors from many different states and countries, these individuals have varied interests and personalities and academic abilities. It all works. </p>
<p>Relax and enjoy the next several months of HS. You will end up where you are meant to be. If you are a parent, then start to let go and look for new interest that you can pursue.</p>
Deans do first reads. I’ve actually described the process in detail here and on my blog in the past. </p>
<p>By the way, I am not Dean Roberts, the “big kahuna” in the Office of Admission. I am one of about eight deans in the office.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
If the reader did not do this, probably 50% of the class at Andover or Exeter would be accepted at UVA, leaving few slots available for OOS public school candidates.
</p>
<p>You seem to think the entire senior class at Andover and Exeter apply. </p>
<p>We deliberately read randomly and feel strongly about evaluating each student in relation to what was offered at their school as opposed to what others who happened to apply that year did at the same school. Not that this amount of detail is all that important, but the files one reads each day are allotted by computer. Deans do not get to pick what they read. </p>
<p>I’ve been covering New England and northern Virginia for years, but I don’t read all of those apps. So, we travel regionally (which I think everyone agrees is a good thing), but we do not read regionally.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update. I suppose my conclusions are derived from listening to a college rep say that he was the representative and reader for all applications from our city and that he would have to defend his particular choices in committee versus the choices of the other committee members for other cities/regions. I would then expect that this reader would be highly familiar with all of the applicants and would know that the committee probably expect him to be a bit more creative in finding that undiscovered gem rather than recommending, yet again, some straight-A kid from a good local private school but who is the 8th or 9th applicant therefrom. This is why parents stress out about who from their kid’s school is applying to the same school that their kid is applying to. Noone believes (whatever the Dean says) that Harvard takes four or five kids from any one school (other than Andover and its ilk), or UVA four or five from some OOS public school, without actually having said, “Whoa, wait a minute!” At UVA, your process looks far more random</p>
<p>There is so much misrepresentation, in these parts (No. California), regarding UVA (which I think is a WONDERFUL school, in an exquisite setting). UVA was high on my daughter’s list but, ultimately, fell off the list because she knew herself well enough to know that she wanted more urban access (however, she will include it on her list for med. school).</p>
<p>That said, UVA was represented, at my daughter’s highly-regarded independent high school, as not taking out-of-staters with less than a 4.0 and 2400 on the SAT (while my daughter got a 2300+ on the SAT, she had a lower, unweighted, than 4.0 GPA (weighted it was a 4.3, and there is tremendous grade deflation at her school, but still she had a very respectable, unweighted GPA), so seemingly, she would not have gotten in. Ironically, she got into Stanford (although she’s going elsewhere) but, yet, would not have gotten into UVA (?).</p>
<p>Do you mind, Dean J, commenting on the accuracy of my daughter’s high school’s assessment of the accepted OOSers stats because if the school’s college counselors are giving erroneous info, I want them to know since it is eliminating a whole passel of really special applicants for a really wonderful college. Thanks so much.</p>
This would only be true if you are living outside of the United States.</p>
<p>There is not “trading” of applicants in committee at UVa.</p>
<p>
We see people make very matter-of-fact statements about what we “require” from a specific school all the time. Perhaps someone has looked at the last few years and decided that there is a rule simply because they spotted a trend. There is no preset bar for admission here. No one is looking for a specific GPA or test score. It that was the case, I wouldn’t spend 12+ hours per day at this time of year reading applications. There are no formulas or calculations related to the application review process. We make our notes by prose.</p>
<p>I’ve addressed GPAs and how meaningless they are outside of context before. You can read about it on my blog.</p>
<p>There is no way to know if your daughter would have been admitted.</p>
<p>Well, let’s all remember that UVA treats OOS alumni kids as in-state, reducing even further the true pool for true OOS. In our school, a complete tidal wave of applicants are applying to UVA: the alpha girl applied, and so everyone from the drill team to the cheerleading team to the football team to the . . .amazing.</p>