<p>ACT 29 (1st time taking it, will retake this fall, expecting 30-32)</p>
<p>Taking most rigorous classes available. 10th grade=1 ap, 11th=4 ap, 12th grade=5 ap. General upward trend. Recieved 4 and 5 on the tests.</p>
<p>I come from a very competitive high school.</p>
<p>satII chemistry=730, writing=690, history=700</p>
<p>Activities: nhs(11, 12) amnesty international member (10,11,12) math team member (11, 12) tutored children (10,11,12) volunteered at a hospital (4-8 hours per week 11, 12) played cello since 4th grade.</p>
<p>awards: ap scholar with distinction, numerous volunteer awards</p>
<p>parents did not go to college (mom dropped out of high school), low income family, troublesome teenage life. Does it help to write about unfortunate circumstances in my essay?</p>
<p>What’s your cumulative GPA? What’s Your rank? Those, along with your ACT (or SAT) score will be the most important parts of your application. If you can get your ACT to the 31-32 range, and your class rank is top 5% or so, you’ll be in good shape. Your family circumstances would certainly be of interest to the admissions committee; you should go ahead and explain everything. Although no formal “AA” exists for people from low income backgrounds exists, UVA seems to be reaching out to these groups, so it could give you a boost. Being a first-generation college student would also give you a slight boost.</p>
<p>I am in the 4% with a 4.2 weighted gpa, but next year, my school will not report the class rank. bummer.</p>
<p>should i explain everything candidly? It may seem like I am looking for sympathy…</p>
<p>Don’t try to paint a sad story and/or make excuses, admissions committees see this often and it doesn’t seem to work. It seems as if you don’t need excuses however, you have nice credentials. Good luck.</p>
<p>it seems like u were accepted? May I ask you what your stats were?</p>
<p>yogurt, you seem pretty smart and well-spoken. I’m sure you could weave your background into a nice essay.</p>
<p>don’t go to UVA. UVA sucks. Let me just get that out there. UVA - they’re “so great” yeah, and they WILL tell you they are. If you’re from the midwest UVA is the coldest most unfriendliest place in the South full of great schools - Washington and Lee, Emory University, Georgia Tech, Tulane University, Duke - for God’s sake, it’s Duke!, UNC-Chapel Hill, don’t pick UVA (plus unless you have money they really aren’t going to want to take you out-of-state b/c the state is so behind on its education budget that it’s had to raise in-state prices significantly and trust me, i know, i live near charlottesville, most people in this section of virginia have BANK.) So, please, I’m not the hell-raising-hater-of UVA and I’m not trying to completely discourage you, I just want you to know from someone who KNOWS UVA and knows awesome and great people who go there and don’t exemplify those horrid UVA traits, but this is just fair warning. Think twice about what you think you want and will get out of UVA b/c the down-home, laid-back, warm, Southern, cosy atmosphere is NOT in Albermarle County. My best friend lived i Arlingto, Va and we looked at UVA and she moved to St. Paul and came back and told me UVA was like hell. So, just rethink that. If UVA is still what you want go for it- it IS an excellent academic school, more or less…</p>
<p>w t f are you talking about? Your rambling, incoherent, and poorly supported assertions have left me dumbfounded. You seem so quick to jump out and make bold statements concerning things which obviously are quite unknown to you. At no point in your diatribe did you even approach a statement of ANY merit. Also, I realize that this is an online message board, but your grammar is approaching sub-literate levels. Please, take this ■■■■■■■■ elsewhere.</p>
<p>To the OP, and any other prospective wahoos: disregard jadedmoon’s statements. I trust that you are all intelligent enough to see through a (bad) ■■■■■’s (stupid) opinions.</p>
<p>jadedmoon474, please backup your statements with facts. Let me go through them one by one:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>UVa sucks - As you can clearly tell, yogurt, lots of people on this board loved their time at UVa. I can describe all the cool things about Virginia if you would like, but I wanted to keep this post short. Either way, do you trust someone who went to Virginia or someone who just heard bad things about the school.</p></li>
<li><p>There are lots of great schools in the South - I completely agree. But let me just tell you why Virginia is better than all of them…</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Washington, Emory, and Tulane - Not as well recognized as Virginia.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech - Only known for engineering.</p>
<p>Duke - Virginia’s only real competitor. However, do you want to spend 40K going to Duke when you can get just as good an education and name for about 25K. I had lots of friends from NC who picked Virginia over Duke for financial reasons.</p>
<ol>
<li>About the funding issue - yes, Virginia has had cuts but so has every other public institution. Private colleges are also feeling the effects of a bad economy, but they just raise tution to outrageous prices.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Virginia has managed fairly well over the past few years in maintaining their academic standing while not raising tution too much. Furthermore, a new program called AccessUVa gives a lot of funding to out of state students - check it out.</p>
<ol>
<li> I’ve lived in the midwest and let me tell you Virginia’s atmosphere is very much like that of the midwest - nice, friendly people.</li>
</ol>
<p>Don’t listen to jadedmoon, pick Virginia.</p>
<p>Jadedmoon-i bet you got rejected, am i right? If so people like you are amusing.</p>
<p>HAHAHA…I love it…everyone who dream of going to UVA since they’re in 6th grade and then get rejected suddenly hate UVA…that’s the case with all of my Tech friends and JMU friends…they are just jeaulous of us UVA students that made it and that our university is the best public university!!!</p>
<p>WAHOOOOSSSSSSSS</p>
<p>hahaha! no. I didn’t get rejected. I decided I wanted to go northeast because the schools are the best.</p>
<p>J., if you weren’t rejected then why are you so angry? There seemed to be more emotion to your post than fact and reason. And you mentioned someone from Arlington who hated UVa, and I thought I’d mention that nearly I’m from Arlington, and that every valedictorian from my high school (a Newsweek top 10 by the way) was interested in attending UVa. Many of them actually applied early. </p>
<p>As for Southern competition, I love Duke. I think it’s beautiful and very highly reputed, but i believe that UVa’s rich history and economical out-of-state price can easily top Duke’s impressive reputation.</p>
<p>I am angry b/c I got into UVA, visited UVA, and never felt so looked down on in my life. what is it with UVA and black people? I forgot I was still in Virginia. It was time to get out, that’s all. Oh, sure, price. What if price wasn’t an issue for someone? Duke would be it.</p>
<p>jadedmoon, just go away. Nothing you’ve said has any relevance or meaning to anyone.</p>
<p>“what is it with UVA and black people?” - please clarify what you mean by that?</p>
<p>If you are referring to the recent racially-motivated attacks, then I agree that UVa has to do more to prevent them. However, I do not agree that UVa is a school full of bigots and snobs. Rather these attacks came from a small minority of the student body (and perhaps not even from the student body but the Charlottesville community). You will always have idiots at any school whether it be Harvard or Princeton. </p>
<p>However, if you noticed, the UVa community solidly came out and condemned these attacks and did everything possible to make sure that all members of the community felt welcomed.</p>
<p>More specifically, check out the website below to see how UVa is making sure that all people are welcome at Virginia.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/uvadiversity/[/url]”>http://www.virginia.edu/uvadiversity/</a></p>
<p>I again agree UVa has much to do in this area, but we are by no means a school full of bigots and snobs - we are probably much more diverse and tolerant than most schools in this nation.</p>
<p>Duke is not worth the $60 - $70K extra for four years. I should know, I picked Virginia over Duke and have never regretted it.</p>
<p>US News’ ranking methodoloy makes it harder for public Universities to get into the top 10, hence why Duke looks better than it is, and Virginia looks worse than it is.</p>
<p>The rankings should be as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard, Princeton, Stanford</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>MIT, Caltech - (unless you are in science and engineering - then it is #1 along with Stanford)</li>
<li>Chicago, Berkeley</li>
<li>Virginia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke, Columbia</li>
<li>Hopkins, Brown, WUSTL, Northwestern, Rice, Notre Dame, Emory</li>
<li>Michigan, Carnegie Mellon</li>
</ol>
<p>cavalier302 - you’ve just proved my point.</p>
<p>jadedmoon, please backup your statements with facts - not just statements like “you’ve just proved my point”.</p>
<p>If you have a particular concern, express it, so we can discuss. You may be right, but by just making random statements, your comments hold no relevance.</p>