I know that people say students from northern Virginia tend to have higher scores, but does this really affect chances of admissions? I heard someone on the virginia tech forum say that being from northern virginia makes it harder to get in.
There’s no stigma. There’s just a huge population in NOVA and they have to give spots to people in other parts of the state. Here’s a tool that shows the percentage of applicants that get in, by county or city. It looks as though NOVA students have plenty of chances. In 2014 they took over 1,000 students from Fairfax (39.5% of applicants) and only 80 (55.9%) from my county. The total class that entered in 2014 was 3700 students so Fairfax filling 1016 spots is significant.
http://research.schev.edu/enrollment/b8_admissions_locality.asp
I wonder how many of the 1016 Fairfax students were from TJ?
I hear that a very large number of TJ students end up at UVA
Interesting. I didn’t know those figures existed. Many people from NoVa believe that it is harder to be admitted to UVa from NoVa than from other parts of the state, but the U. keeps saying that is not true. .Here’s 2014-15 numbers:
Fairfax County Annual Admissions Summary
Academic Year Applied Accepted Acceptance Rate Enrolled
First-Time in College
2014-15 2,571 1,016 39.5% 630
Transfer-Undergraduate
2014-15 336 154 45.8% 123
Loudoun County Annual Admissions Summary
Academic Year Applied Accepted Acceptance Rate Enrolled
First-Time in College
2014-15 769 306 39.8% 197
Transfer-Undergraduate
2014-15 118 63 53.4% 54
Prince William County Annual Admissions Summary
Academic Year Applied Accepted Acceptance Rate Enrolled
First-Time in College
2014-15 476 213 44.7% 133
Transfer-Undergraduate
2014-15 46 23 50.0% 19
TJ has approximately 150-170 students accepted to UVA every year. Usually about 80-100 end up attending.
Graduating class size is around 450 (mine was 455 in 2014), and about 50-75% of the class applies to UVA.
Source: graduated from TJ in 2014.
But they do limit significantly the number of TJ students they accept. To show you how competitive it is, students that have a 4.0 weighted at TJ have a very hard time getting into UVA.
We do not have a limit on the number of students we take from TJ or any other school. If you have sat in a UVA info session at TJ in the past 10 years, you’ve heard me say this.
GPAs are fairly meaningless without context. We are concerned with the actual coursework and grades. The GPA attempts to summarize this, but you can have students with identical GPAs with very different paths shown on the transcript.
Many of my friends were from “rova” (rest of virginia… hahaha) and honestly they had no chance against the nova and oos students. They didn’t get deans list, they were lucky to get Bs. It is an affirmative action of sorts. I heard from my friends, lots of stories of students from really rural rova who drop out. I mean, how can you not admit the valedictorian? But then when the valedictorian gets straight Cs at UVA… One of my very best friends was salutatorian of her rural rova hs but she got mostly Cs at UVA with some Bs. Not sure she ever got an A. She studied for hours. I would help her with things I had learned in middle school as an OOS student. The high school education is just superior in NOVA and OOS. I mean, she got a 2 on her AP Calculus exam as the #2 student in her whole high school. I teach in Fairfax now and our #2 student is taking multivariable calculus and definitely got a 5 on their AP calculus exam. There aren’t official quotas, but the situation I described above is real.
Oh a sidenote, before teaching in ffx I taught in a rural district for 2 years. The honors students from that district are the same caliber as the standard level students in ffx.
Yes, I see the same thing in some urban high schools. Unfortunately, AP level classes in some urban high schools are not as high level as in top suburban schools. Also, very few of the students in my local city school district earn college credit from the AP classes - I’ve seen some of the data. My kids took almost all AP classes in their city high school and still had plenty of time for activities, but in a top suburban high school they would have been overloaded with that workload.
Though I cover Northern Virginia and am a passionate advocate for my students, I have spent time in schools all over the Commonwealth. It is not accurate to the say that the rest of Virginia is lacking.
The retention and graduate rates don’t seem to back up the idea that lots of students are dropping out. [url=<a href=“http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/table/%5DYou”>http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/table/]You can compare graduate rates at different schools here/url.
NOVA, Richmond, the beach…any area where there is a dense population, there will be rumors that it’s harder to get admitted to college from that area.
I looked into this a year or two ago, compared the numbers of applicants from the different counties and incorporated cities with the admission rates and the state population. What I found was that basically, HS students from NoVa were far more likely to apply to UVA than students from the rest of the state. For example, if 25% of students at schools elsewhere thought they had enough chance to follow through with an application, you’d see see a corresponding 50% of students from the NoVa schools applying.
The admission rate for NoVa is slightly lower than the overall admission rate. But those are self-selected, NOT randomly sampled, groups.
The upshot is that total NoVa applications almost certainly include many students who (on average) finish much lower in their HS graduating class, and include many who have no real shot at admission. Applications from the rest of the state tend to be more skewed towards students who do have a good shot at admission, with a smaller portion of unrealistic long shot applications.
Virginia residents who take the most challenging courses available and get good grades that put them at or near the top of their class are likely to be admitted. Period. Without regard to where they live in the state.
Many TJ students have an unrealistic view of their intellectual and academic “superiority” over other students. The average TJ student might be better positioned than is the average student at other schools, but the average TJ student is NOT inherently more desirable than top 10% students at other schools. (And top TJ students are not necessarily any better than top students at other schools, either.) They must earn their own admission into colleges, just like everybody else.
My son is an OOS from a small rural high school who is second year in SEAS. I find this thread interesting. He discovered that first year students from NOVA had a much more thorough background in calculus and chemistry than he had. He skyped us and said that there were so many smart kids here that he wondered if he really belonged there. He dug in and used Khan academy to help him fill in the gaps. By the end of first year (he got B’s with one A), he felt that he was on an even playing field so-to-speak with NOVA students. Now in his second year, he finds the work even more challenging but not because he has gaps, because it is. In my opinion, it’s not about where you come from so much as grit and determination. Kids from smaller rural high schools can and do succeed at UVa.
“Many of my friends were from rova and had no chance against the NOVA and OOS,” “affirmative action of sorts”, etc. Sorry, that is clearly exaggerated. There are plenty of kids from other parts of Virginia that are top students, top EC’s, top SAT’s, had 5’s on AP calculus, AP Physics, etc. @FCCDAD ,Enjoyed your post.
Our graduating senior tour guide at UVA Engineering School was from a rural OOS HS where she was highly regarded and then total culture shock at UVA being far behind in most subjects. She explained in great detail the multitude of tutoring option available on campus to help everyone get to the level they need to be successful. She also changed from one of the most difficult engineering majors to one that was the least technical. Not having had calculus before college was a real disadvantage in engineering. I feel though for other students who were not admitted that had more academic potential. She enjoyed UVA but talked far more about her social (greek) life than what she had learned. We were left with an impression that academics might not be challenging enough for top students especially those who would not spend as much time on their social lives.
“I feel though for other students who were not admitted that had more academic potential.” I doubt that UVa in general is admitting many students that they feel do not have “academic potential.” The average SAT in engineering is about 1420. If a kid is admitted to engineering, someone thinks they can do the work. As neonpink notes, her son was able to do the work, despite coming from a rural OOS school. You may be dealing with kids , like many from a school like TJ, who have been exposed to calculus already but a bright , motivated student can catch up. My UVa kid had BC calculus, etc. in high school , my VT engineering kid did not have calculus in high school (just didn’t want to take it and was not initially admitted into engineering-took calculus for the first time in college, aced it and quickly was able to move into engineering).You do not necessarily have to have had calculus in high school to do well in engineering.
@dcplanner “We were left with an impression that academics might not be challenging enough for top students especially those who would not spend as much time on their social lives.” Any engineering school is going to be challenging. Fit is important. Some parents and kids would love a place like UVa, with a good balance of academics, social opportunities, sports ,etc. Others would be happier at other schools . Hopefully, your child found a great school that works for your family.
@hazelorb “The high school education is just superior in NOVA and OOS.” Okay. Good to know.
“The high school education is just superior in NOVA and OOS.”
The patronizing attitudes of some WOULD explain the negative stigma some assign to NOVA. Geez.
Unfortunately, my instate kid (from the dreaded “ROVA” ) did say that some of the NOVA and OOS kids did seem to think initially they were all that! In one of his first phone calls, he joked about all the TJ kids he had met- “like they’re everywhere” - he kept running into all these kids talking about going to TJ . But it probably calms down after the kids get to know each other.
@dcplanner My son also mentioned to me that there were options offered for students to “catch up” if need be, but he didn’t use these. My S had taken calculus 1 at a nearby college because his high school didn’t offer it. On his first exam in calc 2 the professor wrote on his exam “drop down to calc 1.” My husband and I advised our son to drop down as the prof suggested. He refused, used Kahn academy, and ended up with a B. As you mentioned, changing classes or tweaking a major are also options for kids who may not have a strong enough background in math or science.