Same story here. My DS applied to Engineering with SAT 1470 and 4.0 GPA and was waitlisted. We are OOS if that makes any difference. Guess legacy status doesn’t count for anything either. Not feeling very hopeful.
Legacy this year seems to count less then ever. My daughter has friend with good stats and triple legacy waitlisted.
Son applied Early Decision Tech, deferred now waitlisted. He’s got great credentials, but that aside, what are the chances of getting in off the waitlist?
I am really trying to make sense of the VT COE admissions policy. Our daughter is #7 in her IB class, has a 4.56 GPA and an SAT score of 1350. She is president of one honor society and involved in several others. She takes part in academic and athletic extra curriculars, both at school and in the community. and holds leadership roles in most. She was a finalist for the Davenport Scholarship (highest engineering scholarship offered at Tech) and she has been wait listed. Her credentials are superior to many known candidates who were accepted into the COE with inferior SAT, inferior grades in a much less rigorous academic program. It makes no sense, Davenport says she was qualified enough to be a finalist for the top engineering scholarship, but admissions says she is not even qualified to be a Hokie. We may never know whether she would have received the Davenport. I hope they are forthcoming with information for a basis for her wait list and why inferior credentials were allowed in. Very frustrated right now. We need some answers.
The commonality re Waitlist seems to be super popular majors like Engineering and Computer Science and perhaps Business. Note that getting into CS or Eng is much harder than other programs at other schools too. 4.5GPA and 1500+SAT or 34+ ACT CS applicants (who are avid programmers who have led Robotics teams, created Apps, AND done sports and comm service etc) get Rejected from what they think are “match” schools routinely. The Avg stats for Engineering (e.g., GA Tech, Cornell etc) are significantly higher than overall for university.
FYI to poster above @Makingsense , Cornell Engineering admits have perfect/near perfect Math SAT, and Subject Tests for Math 2 and Physics and/or Chem. Those I know that got in had 800’s on all three. 680 is way low for Cornell Engineering (very few if any sub-700 math accepted) so I don’t think your dd has a “good chance at Cornell”. Sorry to burst the bubble. Though I agree about the Davenport scholarship finalist should = admission.
It seems they are looking for a diverse class which is the goal of holistic admissions. I suspect their data shows that super high stats students don’t matriculate if accepted…they know those students will choose a “higher ranked” school. They want the students that are likely to accept the offer.
I also think this was the direction they decided to go after over-enrolling last year.
We knew admission this year, especially in engineering, was going to be a tough one. Will be interesting to see how the waitlist plays out. I personally think they went the safe route in a much higher reliance on waitlisting (what they should have done last year). I think your going to see a good deal of these high performers off the waitlist.
Sorry to hear all the very qualified folks who didn’t get in. I hope college admissions in the future will make more sense than it does now – particularly, in rewarding the students who work the hardest and are so passionate about being a Hokie! Good luck on waitlist all.
Waitlisted for Engineering
Instate
1500 SAT (800 Math)
790 - SAT Subject Math 2
3.8 UW, 4.27 Weighted
Very rigorous courses (AP Physics BC, Math AB Calc, AP Chem all in junior year)mostly Honors & 9 AP courses and 1DE
Top 15%
NHS, National Science Honors Society
On track to be an eagle scout by May 2020
Athlete (2 years of high school BB),
Director of the MUN club in his school. Developed the club from a few members to 100 members
Kids with lower GPA and less rigorous courses have gotten in, my son is questioning himself to understand the reason for attending an advanced STEM high school and take all Hons and rigorous science courses, it is definitely disheartening since its instate and was his top choice.
Really disappointed about the decision and trying to see if we can get some answers
Would like to know why he was waitlisted. Will the admissions office provide information if the school counselor reaches out to them.
Did not get any reply on the other thread so posting it here to see if anyone would respond
Class rank outside top 10% means there were many more from their school applying with better GPA. I think GPA is bigger at VT then SAT. Math AB Calc (do they offer a BC) - I had heard rumors that if didn’t take the higher class if offered it would negatively impact their review for engineering.
And then biggest factor - lots of applicants and many less spots then last year to fill. Plus an overreliance probably on the waitlist because of overacceptance last year. You are seeing more on waitlist then normal which should mean a good deal of students off waitlist and accepted in near future.
I would think it would have to be, otherwise the waitlist becomes one big lottery. What are they going to do, pull random names out of a hat without regards to GPA, SAT, AP courses, etc? I don’t think so. Then again, this whole process doesn’t make sense.
Based on the thread in this forum, can we assume VT put approximately 3,000 on the waitlist this year (larger than any amount from previous years) and perhaps few hundreds can get off in early May?
Sorry, He did BC Calc. He took all the hard Math & Science courses.
Very disappointed and nervous about this whole process.
Thanks for the response.
No, and no. Sample size on these forums is way too small to make even the most uneducated of guesses. It’s all speculation. The waitlist is a fluid number and doesn’t yet include any RD applicants. What the number is/was at 6:00 PM on 2/21 could be very different from what it will be on 2/28.
I would think they say there is no ranking etc. because as you said there are probably at least a dozen lists depending on major.
So to tell someone they are #2 on the waitlist - it may be #2 on the biology waitlist. Then you see 20 people come off waitlist and go - hey I thought I was #2. Because the #2 was meaningless as a predictor of when will come off. 20 people could have got off the list for English major and your still sitting at #2 on the biology.
Or say the English deparment has 0 on the waitlist but has 10 openings. VT could then say - hey since we have 10 spots available lets just pull 10 from the undecided waitlist then.
So the ranking/list isn’t something they can really tell people that would be of any use. Of course the rankings exist (maybe they are more like tiers like … here are the next 20 applicants that will get in for this major). So instead of applicants ranked 1, 2, 3 they could be in Tier 1 group, Tier 2 group, Tier 3 group etc.
Fall Waitlist FAQ
https://vt.edu/admissions/undergraduate/apply/wait-list-frequently-asked-questions.html
According to the FAQ they say admissions has 6675 as their target number for Freshman 2020. I think that number is probably the start of where they want and then filling in some holes in departments to get closer to 6800 total range. Personal opinion as I think the 2017 enrollment is where they want to stay up to this year (then push into the 7000’s permanently when the new dorm comes on line for 2021).
But if you take that number 6675 that would mean using a max 35% acceptance rate (assuming they are being much more conservative this year) you would have to give out about 19,000 acceptances. Last year they gave out 22,393 based on their prior expectations (which appears they expected a 30.3% acceptance rate like prior year). Therefore, I would make an assumption they probably did about 19,000 offers and have at least 3,000 then on waitlist (putting total close to last years prediction for what they needed).
So lets then say with 19,000 offers this year they drop to the average of 2016-2019 which is 33.4% - that would mean 6,346 acceptances from initial offer. I would think from there to fill up various departments your talking close to 500 off waitlist. That seems about right to me.
However if a 30.3% acceptance rate like 2018 - thats 5757 acceptances meaning about 1000 off waitlist
But 35.6% like 2017 - thats 6764 acceptances and only a limited few topping off some departments get off the list.
So again … completely unpredictable.
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@cbl1 You are so smart!! Thats about what i had in my mind but not with all the numbers. I hope that after RD they can come out with numbers as to offers/WL to get a better grasp of what is going on. Its harder for the kids that are really wanting VT to just be strung along and have false hope and others can mentally move on.
Waitlisted students should absolutely move on now, and begin to love the idea of attending the school(s) that have accepted them.
It will be a couple of months before VT has a handle on yield. Perhaps for some majors they might be able to go to the waitlist sooner than others, but for in demand majors, like engineering, CS, business…it might never happen.
And for those who need fin aid, even less of a chance of ultimately getting off the waitlist, or receiving enough aid to make it work.
Thanks JGWolf - and hopefully its the more popular majors (like business) that waitlisted too many and need to pull.
I’m curious how the bad publicity of last years over acceptance plays out this year. I wouldn’t be surprise to see closer to the 30% number as I still see people comment things like “oh at Virginia Tech you may not get on campus housing”. Misinformation still out there. And just in general VT admissions has tarnished itself a bit - especially with what most would consider a very late EA decision date.
On the other hand this seems like a very competitive year so if it hadn’t been for the bad publicity on overacceptance etc. I wouldn’t have been surprised with a 35-36% acceptance rate.
So thats why I went with the average 33.4% over multiple years. But I’m hoping for the waitlist crowd they find themselves closer to that 30% number this year that they expected last year.
… and sorry I’m still hoping my daughter takes one of those Pamplin spots vs. going to Georgia.
IMO there are a number of factors contributing to this phenomenon, including VT’s switch to the Coalition App, improved school ranking (especially for engineering), and yield numbers from last year.
Here in northern VA, we’re used to similar complaints about UVA. We knew lots of high stat/legacy kids being turned down over the years. There’s still folks complaining, but most people have accepted that UVA is a reach school even for instate kids. VT was always the backup. I think that is changing. In recent years (maybe the last 3-4?), we have heard many more stories about how hard it is to get into UVA and Tech. VT has always had a very good engineering program and more and more OOS folks are finding out about it. And instate, you can’t get better especially for the cost of tuition. Just like GA Tech when it switched to the Common App, I think VT will benefit from the increased applications and the more selective admissions stats and will gain a bigger presence outside VA.
That said, I feel for the high performers in state that are getting passed over. We should be keeping these students in state! I wish that VT would institute some targets for instate vs. OOS admissions like UVA. Maybe it wasn’t possible in the past based on the number applicants and the total number of students, but I wish this could be considered in the future.