You would need to go over to the University of Tennessee Early Action page. Due to differing due dates between UTK vs VT, it looked like an additional SRAR submission and changed thousands of kids who had applied to EA over to RD because the VT submission was after UTK was due. It didnt happen to my son but to many others.
I know most schools will provide an extra 7-14 days after the application deadline for SRAR and test scores. However, we didn’t realize that Penn State required everything in by the 11/1 EA deadline, so my son was bumped to RD, but luckily did get accepted to UP for CS.
Other schools like UT-Austin require the actual SAT/ACT scores be submitted, not just self-reported, in order to be considered.
I can see how once you start going through the process, filling out essay after essay, etc… that it can become a blur and things unfortunately get missed.
I know I annoyed my son with double and triple checking things, so I guess “messing up” on only one of eleven school isn’t bad. Details, details…
UTK was at fault with the SRAR, it is not open for debate. They set up their system to pull the SRAR each time it was accessed, when students had applied to other schools. A real mess that they did not address centrally, but asked students (some, not all) to fill out a form if they had an issue. Even students that had actually been accepted were told they had been pushed to RD. The communication in the portal was devastating, placing the blame on the student with wordage like “since you did not complete your application on time you have been moved to RD” – despite (in our case) having completed the app 2 full months in advance.
It’s a real bad look for UTK. Parents in our school who did not apply to UTK, especially those in younger grades, have heard what happened and in addition to the EA mass of deferrals at our school, UTK has lost some of its luster.
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I’ll update to say that they were great to work with about this. Kid updated and submitted the SRAR, then emailed a follow-up. They replied that they hadn’t received it. Kid submitted again and wrote again, and they replied that they could see that it was submitted and should be able to access it the next day so it wouldn’t get pushed to RD. So, easy enough fix, and they did follow up rather than just rejecting an ‘incomplete application’ or kicking it to RD.
It’s still funny that the application said ‘complete’ in the portal through all of this - I guess that until a person actually looked at it in January there was nothing in their automatic system that recognized the problem. I wonder if it wasn’t an issue at the other colleges because they made their decisions in November, before the second semester started, or if it’s school-specific and they were the only school that cared. VT does have the latest EA deadline, so that may be a factor - the other schools needed everything submitted by mid-October, and at that point I’d imagine that not knowing the full spring schedule is more common.
Someone I know spoke to Tech admissions and heard the following:
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There will NOT be any more batches released between now and the “late-February” release date. All remaining early action notifications will be given on the same TBD late February date. They will send an email out before decisions are released. (Since they seem to like Fridays, I’m guessing maybe Feb 23, though fingers crossed for Feb 16.)
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They do not view their early action published release date as “late.” They view it as similar to their previous year’s EA release dates of Friday, February 17 (2023) and Friday, Feb 18 (2022.) Doing away with early decision this year did not motivate them to move up their EA date to, for example, to January.
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The delay in the FAFSA has nothing to do with their EA release date. Admissions does NOT have access to the applicant’s financial aid info, and they do not consider need when making admissions decisions. Admissions decisions will not be delayed due to the FAFSA delay, though aid notifications probably will be.
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Applications are reviewed by at least three people, each focused on a different part. Regarding why some students got their decisions 2 months before everyone else, Tech insists those decisions were just ready. It wasn’t just one major, or in-state vs out, or high stats vs low. They simply insist these decisions were “ready.” It still seems very bizarre to me, but whatever.
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Housing IS determined by when one submits their housing contract, which of course, can’t be done until one receives an admissions decision. So students who received their notification in December, accepted, and signed the housing contract, WILL likely have an advantage when it comes to housing selection. Admissions says that the housing offices decides that policy. I wonder if a lot of people expressed their concerns to the housing office if they would make a change to equalize all early action admitted students.
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Amazing intel. Thank you.
I’m surprised that the admissions office would provide all of this info. Does this person you know have some kind of connection to VT or some role in the college admissions world that would prompt them to speak so openly to them?
Finally, it really bugs me when people don’t take accountability for their actions. For the admissions office to essentially blame the housing department and say that the housing department makes the policy on who gets first access is weak and disingenuous. The admissions office knew that arbitrarily releasing a batch of admissions just because “they were ready” would give those kids an advantage over all other EA applicants, but they did it anyway.
It is “late” compared to most other schools.
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It’s a 
feeling seeing lower stats kids got offers in December while we wait till “late” Feb.
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Anyone can call admissions and ask questions.
I’m with you on the housing thing. It seems to me that it hasn’t occurred to anyone in admissions or housing that they inadvertently gave special privileges via a head start to a small group of students. They really should ponder this and make things more equitable, such as saying all EA students who sign up for housing by March 1 are all equally situated in the virtual line.
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Yes very bizarre as to what “ready” would mean, as my OOS DS applied in early Nov right before the 11/15 deadline and was accepted. Neuroscience, 3.82 UW, 1460, 9 AP’s, Varsity Baseball & Golf, DECA, Youth Group, part-time job, etc…
We’re very grateful that he was admitted and will be visiting in late Feb, but the process is a head scratcher to me…
Really hard to understand what VT Admissions was thinking with the early batch release. They had never committed to that plan, but just sprung it out there. They put the remaining applicants on edge and now are apparently stringing all of these applicants along to the bitter end anyway.
Makes me wonder if the pre-Christmas release was the result of an in-office holiday party and too much champagne, LOL. Dry January came along and they were like “oh shoot.”
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Great point. The originally posted EA notification date was TBD or Mid-Feb TBD correct? So we had no expectations of a mid-Dec release. Totally agree on the unsettling impression left on the rest of the EA applicants…
Yes originally the decision date was just TBD and then at some point they changed it to “Late February.” The December release could have made sense if they were going to do a series of batches. Absent that, why do it, especially if there was no rhyme or reason to who was in the batch?
Hence, my holiday party theory 
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The email sent just prior to the December decisions almost seemed to suggest that there would be additional batches.
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First Round of Early Action Admission Offers FAQs | Virginia Tech (vt.edu)
“Please note that all Early Action applicants can expect to receive a decision by late-February and all Regular Decision applicants can expect to receive a decision by mid-March. Our team is working hard to notify you even sooner and we will send another email when we plan to release additional decisions to keep you and your family members informed of what to expect as we move forward.”
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Yes, my son was one of the early admits and although I am thankful, I have no idea why he was one of the fortunate ones. He was accepted by the College of Engineering for Computer Science. While his academic profile fits nicely within VA Tech, it is certainly not at the very top but is more towards the middle of admits to the engineering college based on the profile from previously admitted classes. We are out of state and he completed his application in October, but I am not sure how any of that played a role in him being admitted in the pool of early decisions…best of luck to everyone still waiting on a decision!
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Yes, I understand that anyone call and ask questions, but you virtually always get nothing more than the standard talking points like “decisions will be out in late February.” Doesn’t matter; I appreciate the excellent intel.
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Yes, it may not seem late if they had ED decisions out in December, but given that there were no ED decisions in December, late February is very late for the first significant batch of decisions being released.
Maybe that was part of their justification for the early release — to not have their first release of decisions be so much later than most other schools.
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Thank you, and the housing thing will be really unfair and hard for kids who are waiting for their FAFSA to commit. They are going to end up with a bunch of full pay kids in the nice dorms and the kids with more need in “lesser dorms.” they might want to rethink that, its not a great look.
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That hasn’t been our experience.
Earlier housing deposits do set the order for housing selection, but it isn’t that big of a deal unless you want a very specific room in a particular dorm. Even then, there are other factors that control dorm room selection.
VT has a lot of LLCs that are associated with designated dorms and you need to apply to the LLCs. For example, the newest dorm is designated for the Corps of Cadets. Also, not everybody wants the nicest dorm with air conditioning because it comes with a higher price tag. Roommates also matter because someone with an earlier room deposit can form a roommate group and pull someone into the earlier selected room. The list of residential colleges (2 years of housing) and LLCs is here Living-Learning Programs At A Glance | Living-Learning Programs | Virginia Tech
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