Let’s just talk VA public colleges
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Anonymous
There could also be changes in how the "elite" colleges recruit and provide financial aid that make those colleges more accessible to a wider range of highly qualified candidates than before. When you combine that with the common app making it less burdensome to apply to more schools, you could get a larger qualified applicant pool *for some of the most highly sought after schools* than general demographics would predict. As an anecdote, I was a National Merit Scholar, from a real middle class family in "flyover country" (not DC "middle class") and I didn't bother to apply to the Ivy League in the 80's because I didn't think my family could afford it, even with financial aid. If a student like that were accepted to Harvard today, they would be pay very little, if any, tuition. And the Common App makes it easier to apply and find out if it is possible. As for the perception that UVA admission has become more competitive, I think the cause is the same as VT's over enrollment. Students have wised up and realized that student loan debt is bad and these state schools (in particular) are a great deal. |
Anonymous
It's answering the question above, "in plain English who gets in" with stats. With the exception of one score for top ACT, the entering students at UVA have higher stats than the W&M students, especially with regards to grades. If you use the SCHEV site, you can pretty much determine where your student will fit in with incoming grades and test scores because it gives stats for entering fall 2018 students, which are lower stats than the accepted class stats. but still very useful. VA parents find the site and the stats very helpful, as do college counselors because it clearly delineates who gets in and shows up. There's no point in applying to UVA or W&M with a GPA lower than a 4.0, etc. |
Anonymous
No it wasn't. The response started with "Sorry", which certainly doesn't have anything to do with the question "in plain English who gets in". "Sorry" would seem to apply to the previous poster, who wrote about the admission factors considered by the admission offices, and you seem to want to refute that. But your post has nothing to do with what they wrote. |
Anonymous
The top 50 or so national universities and top 25 or so LACs seem to be getting generally more competitive for admissions, with it more pronounced for the very top schools. The remaining schools seem to holding their ground or more likely becoming less competitive due to declining applications. The other phenomenon is that applications to specific programs driven by STEM trends or competition for top students(e.g. VT Engineering, VCU medical school pre-admit, flagship honors programs -- UVA cited competition from programs like University of South Carolina honors as competition for OOS students) is becoming a bigger factor. Everyone looks at overall admission rate to UVA and stats trends, but they can be misleading. Overall HS GPAs have gone up significantly due to grade inflation, so it doesn't make a great historical comparison, and the SAT has changed several times. UVA gets most of its applications from OOS, accepts only about 20% now, and only gets about 24% of those to enroll. OOS differs markedly from in-state. The better indicator is probably in-state acceptance rate, which averaged about 45% from 2005-2017 and never dropped below 40%, but hit 38.4% in 2018. So UVA is now at a historically low level, and rates in Nova are also lower. Virginia Tech has never been below 60% in-state admission rate in that period, but is also trending down at 60.2% in 2018. With VT, engineering and the rest of the university diverge in selectivity. W&M averaged about 43% from 2005-2017 and had sub 40% admissions rates in 2009 and 2010, but was at 45% in 2018, so is still selective, but not trending down. |
Anonymous
Where did they cite this? |
Anonymous
It was in a presentation to the board. The documents are online. I don't have the link. The gist of it was some state universities like South Carolina are putting more into trying to attract top students, and it impacts OOS yield (in addition to competition with privates). This was cited as a more recent development. |
Anonymous
Why would the in-state acceptance rate be a good (or better) indicator? For what? It's merely a reflection of how many applicants the school gets, and not of how difficult it is to get in. We know VA high school graduates are declining, we know now in-state acceptances and attendances are not declining (in fact slightly increasing); so the obvious conclusion is that overall that the top public VA schools (UVA, W&M, VT) have not gotten more, but less selective at least as far as VA residents are concerned. The number of applications they get is probably just a factor of how much self-selection is taking place but doesn't reflect the true selectiveness of these in-state schools. |
Anonymous
Well, I did say better, not good. Rising GPAs aren't necessarily meaningful due to grade inflation in high school, which is highest in the most affluent schools. In-state acceptance rate is more meaningful than overall acceptance rate (OOS + in-state) for an in-state applicant for obvious reasons. A lot of people cite overall acceptance rate for UVA on this board, but it doesn't apply to most of them and OOS has a very different dynamic and cost structure (which leads to pretty low yield). In-state admission rates have declined to below 40% for UVA very recently, which is historically low. This could of course be due to more unqualified kids applying (which means it isn't reflective of actual selectivity), but it might not be as well. I agree with you that overall colleges are becoming less selective due to the demographic changes. |
Anonymous
| VTech is so much cheaper than W&M. That’s s big influencer. |
Anonymous
Wonder how many it influences? You get a less personalized education, but graduating without any debt (for some ) is huge. |
Anonymous
38% of W&M grads in 2017 had loans and had a mean total debt of $32,376. 49% of VT grads in 2017 had loans and had a mean total debt of $40,787. |
Anonymous
Incorrect. You've got everything backwards. UVA received a record of 40,000+ applications this year and only 23.6% of in-state students got in. Internationals and OOS are on the rise (even as UCLA and Berkeley block at 20%). Things are changing very fast at public universities. The GPA, SAT and ACT scores jump every single year at UVA. Last fall the median 75th percentile GPA of an ENTERING (not accepted statistics which are even higher statistics) student was a 4.48 meaning 12.5% had a higher GPA and the next 12.5% had a GPA somewhat below a 4.48. Median ACT score for top 75th percentile of entering students was an astounding 34. And a 1480 SAT. Even the bottom 25th percentile had a 4.16 GPA. So, yes, you had better be in at least the top 10% of your high school class or there is no point in applying.http://research.schev.edu/enrollment/B10_FreshmenProfile.asp. You can talk grade inflation and SAT inflation until you are blue in the fact but the plain fact is that it is very difficult to get into UVA, especially from NOVA, and especially if you don't have a hook. You have to have the very best scores possible. |
Anonymous
Not when compared to privates closing in at $80K a year. Virginia schools offer so much. |
Anonymous
Uh, we're almost into 2020. You're using VA stats to bolster your claim that nationwide community college numbers are down. I don't think you've proven your point. And a .7 figure is insignificant. You're also not taking into account the tremendous influx of international students with superior credentials. 1.5 million international students came to the U.S. this year to attend institutions of higher learning. |
Anonymous
No they haven't. Minmal demographic changes are more than offset by the huge influx of international students which no one predicted 25 years ago when finance magazines said our children would have an easy time getting into college because they were the last of the babies of the baby boom children. There were supposed to be lots of empty places in top colleges waiting for our children. Wrong. Ask any dean - they are filling all their seats will full-freight highly credentialed international students and then happily reporting it as a plus on the diversity box to the ranking services. And if that doesn't work, then they just increase the no. of OSS students. Note that UVA's in-state is at 67%. The U of C system (and Texas and many other states) have capped OSS at 20% because the residents are getting angry that their tax dollars are being used to educate internationals and that their own students can't get into the Cal University system. |