I’m so sorry, that sucks for your DD:-(. It is baffling, but I’ve seen it time and time again. As I mentioned, it happened to my DS. But he landed in a better spot for him…I feel it all really seems to work out. I hope your DD has some options that she likes…I’m sure she does!
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Biochemistry under CALS
I appreciate your perspective and didn’t mean to imply others didn’t earn their spots—far from it. I’m sure every admitted student worked hard and brings something valuable to VT. My frustration isn’t about their worth; it’s about the process feeling opaque when my daughter’s years of effort landed her on the waitlist. As an alum, I cheer for VT’s mission to lift all students. I just wish the ‘holistic’ lens was clearer, so her dedication felt fairly weighed too. No one’s less deserving—just a parent grappling with the outcome.
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The subjective part of the process makes it hard to know the why. But VT does give very good data about admissions rates by major by demographics which is more transparent than most schools.
https://udc.vt.edu/irdata/data/students/admission/index#college
For example, last year the acceptance rate for Biochemistry was 62%. You can break that number down by in-state/oos, male/female, etc. Interestingly, the Biochemistry acceptance rate was only 47% for first gen vs 66% non-first gen. So it was actually harder last year to get into Biochem if you were a first gen. Of course it could be different this year but with more applicants the acceptance rates are probably even lower this year.
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There is also the common data set which gives some guidance on the holistic criteria and how they are weighted by VT. GPA and essay (ut prosim), and geography are very important, volunteer and work experience are only considered, class rank is not considered.
https://aie.vt.edu/analytics-and-ai/common-data-set.html
| Rigor of secondary school record | Very Important |
|---|---|
| Class rank | Not considered for admission, even if submitted |
| Academic GPA | Very Important |
| Standardized test scores | Considered |
| Application Essay | Very Important |
| Recommendation(s) | Not Considered |
| Interview | Not Considered |
| Extracurricular activities | Considered |
| Talent/ability | Considered |
| Character/personal qualities | Considered |
| First generation | Very Important |
| Alumni/ae relation | Not Considered |
| Geographical residence | Very Important |
| State residency | Very Important |
| Religious affiliation/commitment | Not Considered |
| Volunteer work | Considered |
| Work experience | Considered |
| Level of applicant’s interest | Not Considered |
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Ok, VT fam, riddle me this: what’s stopping a kid from ticking ‘parents never went to college’ and snagging that sweet first-gen glow? Is VT out here sleuthing Mom’s dusty diploma from ’92? I’m betting it’s all honor code vibes—‘Pinky swear your folks didn’t crack a textbook!’—but let’s be real, that ain’t stopping a crafty 17-year-old with a dream. Even if they cross-check FAFSA, that ‘parent education’ bit’s optional—oops! Are we just trusting teens not to flex a little creative fiction for a Hokie golden ticket? Spill the tea, I’m dying over here 
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GPA is not considered as high as Class rigor. Our valedictorian did not get offered Honors College but my kid who is 50th in class and took a very hard curriculum compared to valedictorian got in Honors. Valedictorian thinks it was yield protection but I truly think they look at those prompts and course rigor.
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Yes it’s just the honor system. But it’s the same honor system that could get them expelled if it’s discovered after the fact. It’s also something that could follow them their entire career. People do get fired or denied from from jobs for lying about their academic records
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Those of us in NC have the same feelings and similar situation with UNC-CH (although they take less OOS). So many of us have hard working, high stat kids who don’t get in. The academic benchmarks increase with each application cycle. It’s impossible to crack the code of what they could have done differently.
I just visited my senior Hokie yesterday and we talked about the published numbers from this year’s VT application cycle. She feels very fortunate to have gotten that “Yes” four years ago, but she definitely remembers feeling the sting of the “No” from UNC (despite having much higher stats than her sister, who is a UNC alum). No regrets for her - she landed where she was supposed to be.
I was a little bitter but I’m over it (I still secretly cheer when their football & basketball teams lose 
)
Fingers crossed that your DD gets off the waitlist!
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My kids school district in MA is tough on grading in general and does only weighted GPA, has 10% for final exam and adds all points for final grade per year. A- or A (94+) only for others like B-, B, B+. The weighting scale is weird! A (94+) in CP, Honors and AP courses are 3.75, 4 and 4.25 respectively. For each term they do provide grades (only useful for senior mid term grade report) and all other years reported as whole year grades. So, we have had better success with schools that do holistic reviews or uses SRAR. Accepted at 7 institutions so far, 5 of which use SRAR. Probably, these colleges recalculate GPA and don’t use a cut off for screening purposes.
If you really want to improve your chances, move out of state. The yield for in state students is really high, but that’s not true out of state, so in order to get the ~33% of OOS students that they are allowed to take, they have to accept a ton more because the yield is low.
ETA: Overall in state offer rate last year was 47%, OOS 59%.
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Agree… same situation like VT for UMASS Amherst… they are aiming to increase OOS/international enrollment to around 25% (for 2024 OOS/internation enrollment was 30%) and acceptance rate is higher for OOS and they accept more OOS as the yield is lower. Merit is also given to a good chunk of O0S students. Instate overall cost is only 40k and top MA students also get a local 3k/yr scholarship if they enroll in state schools which my kid has… but is waitlisted at UMass Amherst! Instead many well qualified MA students (other than top 2-8% who get into Harvard, MIT, BC, BU, Tufts, NE) UMAss Amherst is only cheapest good school option but has limited seats only. So… many good B+/A- students with good standardized scores and EC’s hunt other state schools! We are a highly taxed state too!
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I tend to think there’s something to this… our two sons both had similar, maybe slightly higher stats than what’s listed in these threads… and both were accepted to VT from OOS. Both end up going elsewhere. But it doesn’t make sense as outlined. It is a bit of a lottery… the stats are the ticket to apply and have a chance… and then have to see where the ping pong ball lands!
We are from PA and apply to Pitt/PSU as “backup schools” and then VT which is very similar to PSU but a slight upgrade… and then after that we apply to target/hard-target schools … about eight of them… and we really just hope one or possibly two “hit” so they have a solid two three to choose from.
VT is a great school… and so are all of the kiddos discussed in these threads!
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Lottery is exactly how I feel about this process too. We are in-state for VTech and got waitlisted in the EA round. D25 has decent stats with outstanding EC’s (research that has won awards, a published paper, community service etc.), outstanding SAT score, attends a magnet school with rigorous curriculum. Got admitted to pretty high ranked engineering colleges but waitlisted at VTech, so all we can do is shrug our shoulders and move on. Nothing more I could expect from the kid and not a knock on others that got in.
The problem is that everyone wants to go to the same 75 maybe 100 schools. There really isn’t much difference once you get out of maybe the T25. There is little difference between 75, 175, or 275 except in people’s mind. The result is it creates scarcity in 100 schools while the rest struggle to get enough applicants
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Regular decisions are out. Crazy they made EA wait so long!
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similar stats, experience, and sentiments for my S23 DS with CA schools, including my alma mater (hence my username). If my S25 has the same outcome in CA (TBD later this month), I plan to pull advisory support and put it into my kids’ OOS colleges.
I honestly don’t know their process, but I find it hard to believe they didn’t review RD applications before they finalized EA admission offers. Otherwise, why would they not defer students so they can be compared to those in the RD pool? There’s certainly no law against doing that, but it does take away any advantage of applying early.
Unlike most college, VT clearly mentioned on website that RD is made on space available basis. With slightly delayed EA deadlines unlike others, I believe most applicants applied via EA. So they had a much smaller application pool in RD and had a good idea of how many were accepted and their profile following EA results notifications. So the results came out fast for RD. I had 2 kids, OOS, apply to VT- one for Eng - EA and the second one for RD- Business school. Both had more or less similar profile with the Eng kid having a slightly higher SAT score. The Eng kid from EA got waitlisted while the Business Kid from RD was accepted. Might be major related too. However, from our experiences with other colleges, as both kids are more or less similar in profile( GPA, EC’s) and applied to at least 10 same colleges though different majors, it has been pretty consistent in where they have been accepted/waitlisted vs deferred/rejected overall for their target and reach schools. It seems each college has their own subjective assessment/class composition standards (in additions to stats) that determine acceptance vs rejection of candidates.
Also for a school that clearly says the essays matter, I find it odd that they limit the response to 120 words for all the prompts.
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