@stilchs4 For me personally, Echols is a huge boost and incentive for me to attend UVA. I love the new dorms. My older brother was an Echols scholar and the new dorms are really nice. Having class-choosing priorirty as well as being exempt from class requirements is another plus. Also, knowing that UVA chose you to be one of only ~200 echols scholars means a lot to me. Before, I wasn’t so set on going to UVA. Now, I really want to go. I am still waiting on Duke, Princeton, and Carnegie Mellon SCS as those are the only schools I would consider going to over UVA. Even if I got into Cornell or Johns Hopkins (Two schools ranked higher than UVA), I would still choose UVA.