Very disappointed. Deferred
OOS
4.96 w , 4.8 uw
1270 SAT
13 AP’s, rigorous (All A’s) , all 4’s AP exams
5 University of Florida DE’s (3 A’s so far)
Top 7% of class of 1000 seniors
4 year varsity and team captain
State champion, National Champion semi finalist
Over 700 service hours
Many school and county leadership roles
Worked with disabled students daily
Many clubs, student government leadership role etc
I’m not sure what schools are looking for these days. It seems they heavily weigh SAT’s and ignore or devalue everything else
couple of questions…
It seems some students got recalculated GPAs by UTK already. Others were told that would happen after final transcripts sent in. Why the difference?
Also, that message about sending in 7th semester grades literally showed up today, like 2 hours before they announced decisions. It seems like they ran out of time to read all the apps and just started defering people.
Feeling like there’s extremely little time to get people to write new letters of rec or for students to win awards, etc. The info is due in less than a month and Christmas break takes up most of that time! Sigh…
That’s what I think! It is clear they have a set score as a cutoff and possibly don’t even glance at anything else unless it is a major that only accepts a small number of people.
You dont have to get new letters, submit updated grades etc. That is merely a suggestion if you think you need to strengthen your application in some way. I believe admissions are directly related to your major, Virginia Tech told me this and I believe it is true elsewhere. My son has a “unique” major and has so far received EA acceptances across the board. While his stats are good, there are far better in this feed. I have also heard and read that a deferral just means they need more time, you are going into the next applicant pool mixed with RD and a decision will be made. Its stressful but I hear many are accepted in the next round. If you feel your childs stats are strong, I would not feel compelled to get all this other stuff complete. For example at our HS, the semester doesnt even end till the end of Jan so even if my son was deferred, he would not be submitting 7th semester grades. I hope this helps.
The best I can determine is that anyone who either logged into their SRAR for UTK to update grades or a new test score AFTER everything was “complete”, OR applied to another school that also uses the SRAR and did so AFTER their UTK application was complete, caused the SRAR for UTK to “reset” for lack of a better word, and the most recent date (the date you updated it) became the date that is listed as submitting/uploading the SRAR.
My son had everything complete end of September. Has a confirmation email from admissions that everything is complete and they are reviewing his application. On November 26, he logged in and updated his SRAR with his first quarter grades. His portal now shows the SRAR submission date as 11/26, not 9/23. He has put in a call to his regional admissions person and is also meeting with his college counselor at his high school today to see if anything can be done. I bet they will brush it off and say there is nothing they can do which is a big bummer and a disservice to all these kids who worked hard to get everything in early. It also makes a huge difference in being able to make an informed decision about a school which he was hoping to have finalized before March. The more people who call/email the better. They need to fix this.
It is obvious that those items and essays and letters are not relevant nor looked at. Having to wait for a decision in late Feb or March is ridiculously inconvenient. They should openly disclose that there is no true review of an application and they will prioritize SAT scores for EA admittance. I didn’t even list the depth of her course work and class rigor and diplomas or capstone research etc All aligning with her major including specific classes taken at UF through their DE. Being top 7 or 5 percent at her HS is impressive given the kids above her are Ivy League level students. This is UTK! Not Vandy or even FL. Many of their acceptances will opt out for other schools, yet they defer a great student who has then as a top choice.
They’ll tell you as much in their admissions information session. “We don’t look at letters because why would you send us anything that wasn’t a glowing letter?” and “The common app essays get written and re-written and edited over the span of months and at the end (in many cases) don’t resemble the students actual work”.
My son’s counselor said they were so overwhelmed by the large increase in applications they couldn’t get through them all. So they deferred kids to give them more time. Not sure where she got that information but your son could still get in.
My son was also deferred, so decided to put a deposit down at USC instead!
Please share your stats and results on the results thread. It will be a lot quicker for people to scroll through that thread to see results only, instead of scrolling through 1000+ messages on this thread.
A deferral is NOT a soft rejection (at least at UTK nor most other schools).
I completely understand that for those kids that applied EA all over the place and have acceptances in hand, getting a deferral at some and having to wait a few months for a yes/no is not ideal. If UTK was in the kids “top 3” there’s no reason not to move forward to EA and see what it brings.
The SRAR issue is unfortunate. I don’t recall there being an issue last year. My guess would be that the AO response is going to be “sorry, if your kid really is interested in UTK I encourage them to stick through to the EA round”. For those posting their UW/W GPA’s, UTK doesn’t care about those - they care about their SRAR calculated GPA, which can vary dramatically from what your school produces for you, positive or negative. I seem to recall this calculated number being on the UTK portal last year.
What do you mean by this? Filling out the SRAR does not require skill. There was no indication that it was affecting UTK SRAR submission date. Clearly happened to so many. And likely first time they had this issue because this is the first year Tech didn’t have ED which used to have an earlier deadline and as a result they moved up EA deadline which normally would have been after UTK EA decision release. Can’t wait to hear what admissions has to say, but I doubt they’ll do anything. Based on things I’ve read elsewhere, some students don’t even realize this happened to them…they just think they were deferred. This is not a deferral…these kids weren’t even considered in EA pool. It’s as if they applied RD….which puts them at a huge disadvantage…for admission and for scholarships. So disappointing.
I am fully expecting this response as well and already mad about it. I know there is nothing we can do but wait, but it sucks. For our personal situation, S24 has great options already and has two other schools tied for first place where he has been admitted. BUT we had planned on visiting UTK if he was accepted last night, and now will not have time to visit before a decision is released. He has to make a decision about the other two schools before March due to enrollment/housing issues. I really wanted him to be able to fully explore options before making a final decision but we cannot waste $$ on a “maybe” at this point and he is already flying down to re-visit the two he is deciding between in January. Anyway, just frustrating all around. And he doesn’t want to pull his application since he spent time doing it and paid to apply. I get it. If they offer to refund our application fee, he may pull it.
Most eligible students were invited to apply for the Chancellor’s Honors Program and the Haslam Leadership Scholars. Those apps were located in the Just For You tab. My son applied for the CHP and received a confirmation email after it was submitted. Both had deadlines, maybe middle to end of November? His acceptance letter last night noted he was admitted into CHP and under the Just For You tab is a button to accept or decline enrollment into the program. I guess it’s possible more students will be admitted as kids start to accept/decline their enrollment, so I wouldn’t rule out that he could be admitted at a later date. Hope that helps!
Sorry - wasn’t trying to imply it doesn’t suck. It clearly does.
But I’ll also suggest that until the 5/1 deadline for a deposit - keep everything in play. There’s MANY kids that have things come up in March/April that throw a wrench (in a good way) into what they thought was the plan at the end of Christmas.
The reason it’s a new issue this year is due to Tech changing admission process this year. And I think you’re right, they won’t do anything about it. Feb date doesn’t bother me so much because we have to wait for UF til then anyway. It’s about alternative options out of state for scholarships if UF hands out a denial…which for Floridians is a high likelihood…even with perfect grades high test scores and a passion project.
I am a junior parent with a daughter interested in UTK. This is a kind of unrelated question so I apologize, but does anybody know the housing situation for freshman? I know when we visited this fall they said only freshman can live on campus. However, does that mean all freshman are also guaranteed a spot? My son is a student at Auburn and I know if you weren’t accepted in the early round it was difficult for those people to get on campus housing. If this is the case also at Tennessee, it seems like deferrals are going to make it extremely hard for on campus housing as a freshman, which is important to our family and would certainly have an impact on our decision-making in the coming year. Thank you in advance if anyone has any information about this.!!