Question for UVA parents

[Anonymous]

Was talking to a parent a back to school night whose older kid is a freshman at UVA and wants to do pre-med. All I heard was complaints: classes are huge, kid could not register for the classes that they wanted, kid is unhappy. DC is a junior now. Right now they are sort of middle of the pack as far as grades and other stats for UVA. Want to do pre-med but aren't sure they even want to apply to UVA - more interested in W&M. Is what this person said in line with your experience? We won't push the kid to apply to UVA if they are not interested. Our in-state alternatives are W&M, VCU and GMU. Will look out of state otherwise - kid is interested in science-oriented SLACs and mid-size research universities. Would love to go to Hopkins, but it's probably a dream.

[Anonymous]

Usually big schools have large classes before you get into your major. If this bothers your child then I agree that WM would be better.

[Anonymous]

Look at Case - super strong for premed and they like their ED candidates who show interest. Worth a visit!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was talking to a parent a back to school night whose older kid is a freshman at UVA and wants to do pre-med. All I heard was complaints: classes are huge, kid could not register for the classes that they wanted, kid is unhappy. DC is a junior now. Right now they are sort of middle of the pack as far as grades and other stats for UVA. Want to do pre-med but aren't sure they even want to apply to UVA - more interested in W&M. Is what this person said in line with your experience? We won't push the kid to apply to UVA if they are not interested. Our in-state alternatives are W&M, VCU and GMU. Will look out of state otherwise - kid is interested in science-oriented SLACs and mid-size research universities. Would love to go to Hopkins, but it's probably a dream.

Warning re course registration. Cannot speak for SLAC/LAC but going by our kids and their friends at other VA state universities, and some mid-size out of state universities, it looks quite normal for freshman not to always get all the courses they want to.
Upper class students have the first pick and freshman coming with lots of AP credit wanting to start out in more advanced courses will get the "leftovers". They are still courses they need for their majors, but maybe not the first choice.
Flexibility and having back-ups is definitely helping. At the end the will graduate and have all the credits they need, even at the larger state colleges

[Anonymous]

There are no “freshmen” at UVA. They are called “first years.”

UVA’s typical first year retention rate is 97 percent. Very few students transfer. That means there’s a high level of satisfaction.

One of my kids started pre-med at UVA before dialing it back - not because they couldn’t get classes they wanted, but because the pre-med program is very hard.

Personally, if I had a kid who was sure she was premed I’d apply to VCU’s guaranteed admit program.

[Anonymous]

Just fyi the VCU premed guaranteed admit program is extremely competitive.

[Anonymous]

I didn't go to UVA but I liked the big classes in college.

[Anonymous]

Honors college kids usually get better dibs on classes. A great perk of your kid can get in at another school.

[Anonymous]

That first year college students typically can’t waltz into any class they want isn’t exactly big news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Usually big schools have large classes before you get into your major. If this bothers your child then I agree that WM would be better.

+1 UVA kid was pre med and had no trouble getting into classes she needed to for that but yes intro Chem and bio etc are always going to be big classes. It is like that at all bigger schools. She took a sociology class last year that had over 200 in it and she loved it. All the large classes also have a discussion or lab section that brings it down to a much smaller number (usually 20). First years are not going to be able to get into popular upper level classes but usually there is room in intro. My Dd is a third year and still hasn’t gotten into medical anthropology. Some day she will. It’s just how it is. Kids need to be used to going on wait lists and making changes the first few days of class if need be. It’s no big deal.

UVA does not hold your hand. The kids will need to get to their classes on their own motivation, attend office hours and find/form study groups. If they cannot do that, then they will need a school that hand holds more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are no “freshmen” at UVA. They are called “first years.”

UVA’s typical first year retention rate is 97 percent. Very few students transfer. That means there’s a high level of satisfaction.

One of my kids started pre-med at UVA before dialing it back - not because they couldn’t get classes they wanted, but because the pre-med program is very hard.

Personally, if I had a kid who was sure she was premed I’d apply to VCU’s guaranteed admit program.

Honest question- I was actually going to start a post about this a few weeks ago.
Is there a reason why they are not called freshmen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are no “freshmen” at UVA. They are called “first years.”

UVA’s typical first year retention rate is 97 percent. Very few students transfer. That means there’s a high level of satisfaction.

One of my kids started pre-med at UVA before dialing it back - not because they couldn’t get classes they wanted, but because the pre-med program is very hard.

Personally, if I had a kid who was sure she was premed I’d apply to VCU’s guaranteed admit program.

Honest question- I was actually going to start a post about this a few weeks ago.
Is there a reason why they are not called freshmen?

Thomas Jefferson believed that learning never stops. So, no seniors. Instead “fourth years.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are no “freshmen” at UVA. They are called “first years.”

UVA’s typical first year retention rate is 97 percent. Very few students transfer. That means there’s a high level of satisfaction.

One of my kids started pre-med at UVA before dialing it back - not because they couldn’t get classes they wanted, but because the pre-med program is very hard.

Personally, if I had a kid who was sure she was premed I’d apply to VCU’s guaranteed admit program.

Honest question- I was actually going to start a post about this a few weeks ago.
Is there a reason why they are not called freshmen?

Thomas Jefferson believed that learning never stops. So, no seniors. Instead “fourth years.”

Ah, thank you!

[Anonymous]

UVA is very selective.
I do know is that UVA premed is hard and classes can be very weed-out (e.g, orgo) but those are the necessary prescribed courses set by AMA. UVA Nursing is very difficult to get into, too!

[Anonymous]

I asked my recent science UVA graduate. He said he wasn’t closed out if any courses, not even the requisite calculus or intro to biology courses