Let’s just talk VA public colleges
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Anonymous
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Also, those arguing here that demographics for VA are in decline are completely forgetting that UVA, W&M etc take a large chunk of their students from Fairfax County. Now with Amazon on the horizon and tremendous growth in the Dulles corridor, Dean J. says the largest growth in appliications to UVA is from Loudon County, which previously sent very few students (some counties in Virginia send none). Arlington, too, is way up. You can't look at demographics across an entire state and jump to a conclusion You have to look at the growth centers, which is Tysons, Dulles, Arlington, Loudon, etc. Below are some stats from Dean J. at UVA in 2016 but I don't think the maps are coming through:
Okay, now let's look at some maps! UVA Magazine published an awesome article about the Class of 2020 that includes a lot of admission data. My favorite part is the map area, where you can hover over a county (or state or country) and see how many students in the first-year class are from a particular area. If you hold the shift key and click on multiple areas, you can get a summary. Above, we saw that 3,720 students are in the Class of 2020. If I add up the counties/cities in Northern Virginia, I can see that 1,130 students are from the area. So, four counties and four cities are pretty well-represented in the class. So 2,590 students are from the other 91 counties and 34 cities that make up the Commonwealth. Side note: Back in the day, I'd set aside a day or two for Loudoun County visits. These days, one of my colleagues covers Loudoun while I cover Fairfax, Arlington, and Alexandria. The number of Loudoun high schools has increased as the area has been developed! You can see how the numbers increased in our student body on the map: Keep in mind that when you see charts with admission data on them, you are seeing the results of an elaborate review process plotted using just a couple variables. Things like scattergrams don't tell you how we make decisions. As always, I'm happy to chat with you via the comments! |
Anonymous
| Another factor that impacts the number of applications and quality (UVA had a record 41,000 this year, I believe) completely unrelated to any shrinking demographics statewide is the fact that we are going through a sea change in American thinking about who should go to college. When I graduated from high school, students did a variety of things; there was no assumption that EVERYONE was going on to college, much less a four-year one. Now, just look at the graduation list of Langley or McLean High School. With the exception of a few Mormon missionaries there is a college behind the name of every single student and most are four-year institutions.We now assume - as a society (and this is not the norm in Europe) that all high school graduates will go to college and that everyone needs a four year degree in order to get a good job. So even if demographics fall across a state, the number of high school students applying to college will still rise, and of course, certainly in the expanding urban areas of that state. |
Anonymous
No, I was right. You need to check your facts. In-state admission rate was not 23.6%. Preliminary in-state was 36% and as I indicated, has only very recently dropped below 40% as you can see on SCHEV site. About 71% of applicants are from OOS. You also misstate what 75th percentile is. It means 75% of the population are at or below that metric and 25% are above. I am not the person who was arguing that UVA or some other schools are getting less selective. That was someone else. But I do agree with them that overall, the number of applicants is declining and there is significant inflation in numbers like high school GPA. https://admission.virginia.edu/unofficial-admission-statistics-uva-class-2023 |
Anonymous
That is wrong. Number of overall students applying to college is declining. Kids have been applying to more colleges. Yields generally going down because of that. |
Anonymous
| Anyone else nervous about VA Tech? There has been so much violence on that campus. Serious question: Is the campus safe? Do students there feel safe? |
Anonymous
If you take away the one mass shooting, which is practically a random even, the level of violence at Tech is not bad. There were 32 murders on one day. And that is pretty much the Va Tech number of murders. 33 (one additional one) in the last 20 years. In fact since then, Tech has been one of the safe campuses. https://wset.com/news/local/virginia-tech-makes-the-list-for-safest-college-campus-in-america-for-2018. Va Tech takes these things seriously. |
Anonymous
Obviously, you haven't spent a significant amount of time in Blacksburg during the last 13 years. Since 2006, not counting the big massacre, the following murders happened on or near the VT campus and were committed on or by VT students: - 8/20/2006: William Morva kills officers Eric Sutphin and Derrick McFarland in close vicinity to campus. Campus is on lockdown. - 1/21/2009: VT student Haiyang Zhu beheads fellow student Xin Yang in the Au Bon Pain cafe on campus. - 8/26/2009: VT students Heidi Childs and David Metzler were murdered at Caldwell Fields, 15 miles from campus. - 10/17/2009: VT student Morgan Harrington is abducted and killed by Jesse L. Matthew at a concert in Charlottesville. - 12/8/2011: Ross Truett Ashley kills officer Deriek Crouse on VT's campus and then shoots himself. - 2/7/2014: VT student Jessica Michelle Ewing kills fellow student Samanata Shrestha in an apartment next to campus. - 1/27/2016: VT students David Eisenhauer and Natalie Keepers kill Nicole Lovell, a Blacksburg middle school student. - 8/17/2016: VT student Zachary Toothman kills his brother and father in Great Bridge, VA to avoid having to acknowledge his academic suspension. The constant barrage of murders is taking a tremendous toll on those who have lived longer in Blacksburg. Note that this is not counting what happens in "rural Appalachia" like in neighboring Christiansburg, such as the April 12, 2013, shooting at New River Community College, the 2014 Charles Taylor murder or the 2015 courthouse suicide of Mark Ward Faville after being found guilty of murdering his wife in 2000 in Blacksburg. |
Anonymous
Except of those, one occurred on campus. One. In 20 years. This is a community of 30000 people, mostly young. This is not a scary number. (oh and one of the events occered at UVA). Oh, and there are a number of murders at UVA. Not a large number, but it happens. This is not a Va Tech problem. |
Anonymous
Sorry, but it looks like a problem to me. The beheading alone as disturbing. |
Anonymous
Te behedding was a horrific crime. And it was an ISOLATED event. A first year graduate student from a foreign country was placed on academic probation. At the same time time, he fell for another Chinese student. The love was unrequited. He decided if he could not have her, no one could. Tragic, and horrific, but nothing specific to Va Tech. |
Anonymous
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I remember the two students who kidnapped and murdered the middle school student and dumped her body...maybe in North Carolina?
How horrific. |
Anonymous
First, you're wrong. Even if you take the geographical definition of "on campus," it is 2. Two. (Not counting the massacre of 32, of course). Second, you sound like a Tech administrator. If it's (literally) in an apartment across the street from campus where Samanata was strangled to death, or at a nearby outdoor place like Caldwell Field where Heidi Childs and David Metzler were gunned down, or a few blocks away from campus where Nicole Lovell died, if it's not on campus it's not our business! Nevermind that VT students were murderers or victims. If you followed these incidents, you'll also note that the moment a student is arrested, they're expelled from Tech so that Tech then can deny any affiliation with that person. It's too bad they can't posthumously expel the victims, too. For those who live in Blacksburg and who have been through all this, a different picture emerges. When we read statistics like "safest campus" we throw up. We can't listen to the sirenes of emergency vehicles without counting them. Show me one other college town in America with a similar sequence of events that has affected, or was affected by its students during that time frame. On a hopeful note, the last killings are now almost 3 years back. Perhaps the cycle is broken. |
Anonymous
| UVA condones Nazis marching on campus. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Oh stop, that was years ago. Every single campus has had its own issues. |