U.Va. admits 36 percent of applicants

Colleges & Universities University of Virginia
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<p>University receives over 16,000 applications for class of 2010; 5,829 students admitted, 3,237 waitlisted</p>

<p>Marisa Roman, Cavalier Daily Staff Writer </p>

<p>The University offered admission to 36 percent of the 16,252 applicants this year, down two percent from last year’s admission rate of 38 percent of 15,900 applicants. The University admitted 42.2 percent of the 6,602 in-state applicants and 31.6 percent of the 9,650 out-of-state applicants for the class of 2010. </p>

<p>The number of qualified applicants increased this year, saidAdmissions Dean John Blackburn. </p>

<p>“This has been the most competitive pool that I’ve seen,” he said. “In this period now and over the next four or five years, it will become even more competitive.” </p>

<p>The undergraduate admissions decisions for the University of Virginia’s Class of 2010 were made available to applicants online April 1. </p>

<p>Blackburn attributed the rise in highly qualified applicants to numerous factors. </p>

<p>“The population demographics have been increasing, and the popularity of the University is growing,” Blackburn said. “I would expect it to be a little tougher every year. There are a lot of great young people on the wait list right now. A few years ago some of them would’ve been accepted,” he said. </p>

<p>There are 3,237 applicants currently on the waitlist, and, according to Blackburn, about 25 to 33 percent will choose not to stay on the list. </p>

<p>“Some of the applicants on the wait list have other choices. The number of students on the list will probably get down to about 1,900 or 2,000 students. We hope to make some offers to applicants on the wait list, but we won’t know that until after May 1,” Blackburn said. </p>

<p>The admissions statistics from some high schools in Virginia that consistently send students to the University, such as Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, have not changed significantly from last year, said Nina Pitkin, director of student services at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. </p>

<p>“This year, there were 266 applicants and 211 students were admitted,” Pitkin said. “This number is about the same every year or maybe changed by about 10 students. These numbers were not affected by the SAT change.” </p>

<p>According to Blackburn, the challenge in determining the median SAT score for the Class of 2010 involved comparing the past median score from the old SAT with the new test. </p>

<p>“The SAT is not evenly comparable. We compared the middle 50 percent of the Class of 2009’s scores from the old SAT and the Class of 2010’s scores from the new SAT,” Blackburn said. </p>

<p>The middle 50 percent SAT score of the enrolled Class of 2009 was between a 610 and 710 verbal and between a 620 and 720 math. For the newly admitted Class of 2010, the middle 50 percent score for math was between a 650 and 750 and the reading score was between a 630 and 740. </p>

<p>The candidates’ reply date for the Class of 2010 is May 1. Days on the Lawn begin this Friday with a day for the admitted Echols and Rodman scholars.</p>

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<p>impressive…</p>

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<p>the lower acceptance rate is, the happier i am.</p>

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<p>not me… 2 % higher and maybe i’d be off the wait list. l0l</p>

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<p>i’m actually surprised that the amount of applicants didn’t spike up as much as everyone else i applied this year. also, UVa didn’t seem to get THAT much more selective this year in comparison to, again, everywhere else i applied this year. oh well, i’m more than happy to have been accepted haha and i definitely still think it’s signals a great accomplishment</p>

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<p>Isn’t it a little misleading to compare last year’s “enrolled” numbers with this year’s “accepted” numbers? Those with the higher numbers are the most likely to attend a different school. UVA will have to compute the numbers of those who actually enroll this year and then compare those numbers to the prior year to determine if SAT scores actually increased.</p>

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<p>Of course. But the person writing the article probably isn’t entirely familiar with that circumstance of admissions and, as such, didn’t come to that conclusion.</p>

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<p>The main reason why UVa doesn’t get that many applicants most probably stems directly from the fact of its ubsurdly ■■■■■■■■ application. If UVa went common app i wouldn’t be suprised to see 20,000 applicants. I mean honestly - who can say they weren’t thoroughly ****ed off at UVa for having to fill out that thing. - and not only that - the essays don’t even correlate with anything on the common app - its an extra 3 essays you have to write.</p>

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<p>I strongly agree. There is no real reason not to go to the common application. If UVA moved to the common app, a supplement could still be required with an additional essay or two if they felt it necessary.</p>

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<p>wow 2% decrease…seems a bit steep for only a 1 year span but nontheless very impressive</p>

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<p>While both are factors, I think one major factor is that it is a public school. The instate applicants (who are fighting for 2/3 the spots) are not going to increase year to year. The top in-state kids already apply to UVa. </p>

<p>Many OOS students are turned off from applying because a) its public or b) they are fighting for only 1/3 of the spots and could probably get into a more prestigious school if they got into UVa OOS.</p>

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<p>well if you look at a school like rutgers, which is public, it gets 29,000 applications - nearly 2x as much as virginia. yet new jersey only has 1 million more people. </p>

<p>I think many more people in virginia would apply to UVa as a reach, if they could just change the name of the school up top of the common application. I’m sure the number of applicants would go up if everyone who applied to virginia tech applied to uva. After all you have nothing to lose except your $60.</p>

<p>In california - if you apply to one uc you can apply to all of them by just checking a little box. certainly if you had to apply to each school individually, schools like berkeley and ucla wouldn’t have 20% admits rates.</p>

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<p>point taken jags. If only UVA communicated with its applicants, and advertised its school more. The problem with that idea though, is that UVA doesnt need to advertise its school. Im just saying it would help</p>

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<p>From our school AT LEAST 20 people got in (i.e. I can name 20 people who were accepted), and there might be a couple or so more. That is probably he most kids that have gotten in. Normally it’s around 15 students.</p>

<p>UVA essays are not that bad. I used one of the commonapp one, and another one took me literally 15 minutes to write. </p>

<p>Besides, I don’t think UVA pays that much attention to essays anyways. Otherwise, I would not have gotten in, and my friend who got waitlisted would have.</p>

<p>Admissions are weird. All the schools that I spent time on writing essays and love my app I got rejected/waitlisted from. ALL the schools that accepted me were the ones I spent less than 25 mins doing the entire app. </p>

<p>This is just absurd</p>

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<p>“if you had to apply to each school individually, schools like berkeley and ucla wouldn’t have 20% admits rates.”</p>

<p>I think that as long as they didn’t ask for seperate essays, just as many people apply. If it was just about a little extra paperwork and an extra 50 bucks most people would go ahead and take the chance, especially since UCLA and Berkeley can be so random with who they let in. It gives the lower scoring applicants the feeling that maybe, just maybe they’ll get lucky.</p>

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<p>no matter how different the essay questions are, you can always tweak them to fit the prompt</p>

<p>unless they are completely different like U Chicago’s. For example, I answered UVA’s “tell us the world you cae from” and I used an essay from another app that said “tell us about a person that influenced you the most.”</p>

<p>The topic seems totally different, but once I changed the first and last paragraph it made sense</p>

<p>so it is not that hard to write essays (besides, they are only 250-500 words, and shouldn’t take you more than hour … unless you are one of those people who write essays in summer and keep editing it till Jan 1)</p>

<p>I don’t know about rest of state, but in Fairfax County almost everyone who takes IB/AP courses and does well in school applies to UVA (with the exception of some people who “abhor” UVA).</p>

<p>I guess it is probably the southern part of the state where students are reluctant to apply.</p>

<p>Also, the other states in question are NJ and CA. They are big on colleges, and are hyper-competitive. While Northern Virginia is that way too, I am sure the (most of) rest of the state is a different story.</p>

<p>A more realistic comparison would be with NC or GA with pockets of areas that send a lot of kids to colleges with the rest of state still being rural.</p>

<p>Besides, I do not see the point in increasing the NUMBER of the applicants. I think it should be the QUALITY of applicants. That just means having to send more rejections, and hurting the feelings of more people. It is the quality the school should be after.</p>

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<p>oh i definately agree with you annadale about changing the first and last paragraph and such - I just had an anal mother who had me work on essays till i could recite them from memory. it was a tedious task to say the least.</p>

<p>regardless -
i agree with you on increasing the quality of applicants - however - uva will never be in a situation that a school like chigaco finds itself in…admitting nearly half the applicants - but all are extremely well qualified. If UVa just increased its number of applications, its % admitted would drop significantly. Now while I’m very opposed to rankings now, I wasn’t when I was 16 years old and a junior in high school. UVa right now flips between being tied with berkeley or 1 behind it. But the truth is - if uva had a larger application pool - admitted less students - it would bounce ahead of berkeley - right now only hairs split the two using the methodology. And I think students seeing a school is no.1 would increase the quality and amount of applications you get from OOS. The OOS pool of course being the only place where you can increase the quality of the student body at this point.</p>

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<p>well i guess so but the general rule is more applicants the better the quality. Generally, but then again are all those people going to UVA? I really don’t like the idea of settling for UVA when u can go for a better school. UVA is good but people don’t even think about applying to other OOS schools. Some people all so obsessed with it as if it’s harvard and think UVA is better than georgetown which is WRONG. I wouldn’t blame UVA but this really sort of provinicialness of my fairfax county so-called super-competitive which i really don’t think is competitive at all ****es me off.</p>

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<p>^^^ imiracle911</p>

<p>dito with my school! So many people see UVA as the ultimate reward for working **s off for four years (IB Diploma candidates and others). I know of only one really smart friend of mine who did not want to go to UVA, and unfortunately the way decisions worked out he has to go there now (unless he gets off the waitlist at an ivy and couple other great schools).</p>

<p>Actually, now that I think of it, there are some other people too, but still an appaling majority think UVA is the best school…</p>

<p>Also, someone mentioned UVA being second to Berkley. I think almost anyone will put Michigan over UVA too. I think, or would like to think, that most students use personal discretion when looking at those rankings (like does Wash U really belong that high up? I don’t think so…)</p>

<p>UVA is a good school, but I agree with imiracle911 that it is extremely overrated in Fairfax County and probably the entire state.</p>

<p>People need to realize that only reason it is so attractive is that it costs significantly less, with only a slightly less quality education. I do not think people should mistake it for saying it provides better education or better school environment than a lot of other school people try to compare it to.</p>

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<p>i mention berkeley as uva and berkeley perenially are either 1 or 2 in the usnews rankings. michigan isn’t. and i will definately agree that michigan and berkeley have better phd programs than uva but undergrad wise - i’d give uva the nod for 3 reasons. Its the smallest of the 3, it has the most money of the 3, and is the least research oriented of the 3. I think its important to remember that Michigan and Berkeley earned their reputations through their graduate school/research work, while UVa earned its reputation through its undergraduate program.</p>

<p>I don’t get the impression that you get annadale/imiracle that virginians think uva is the end all and be all of schools. I get the exact opposite…the “i came here because its a really good school thats really cheap, but i would have went elsewhere if my parents would have footed the bill.”</p>

<p>As an OOSer, I will say that, at least where I live, people are more impressed with saying you go to UVa than saying you go to Gtown - and thats coming from a town thats 90% catholic - and a catholic high school. You say you don’t understand whats so special about UVa - I pose the same question about Gtown.</p>