UVA Early Action this Friday Jan, 30, 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does Dean J read every application? I know, this might be a dumb question, but she makes it sound like she does?

No, she’s assigned to part of NOVA.

Ok, thank you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:12:27 and 12:31 you're being weird

Don’t you think it’s weirder for this person to use the UVA brand at her disposal? If UVA wants to have a transparent process, they should just post a bunch of Q&As on their official admission website.

Good lord. They basically do this, through Dean J. She is a member of the admissions team who seems to like doing this sort of communication and maintains both an Instagram account and blog providing university-sanctioned information. This is exceptionally helpful and more transparent than 99% of universities out there.

And having just gone through the exceedingly opaque and chaotic admissions process run by the University of Michigan, I will simply say that anyone complaining about the transparency provided by Dean J is just looking for things to complain about.

+1

I can't believe people are finding a way to bash UVA's helpful and rare transparency. Why isn't the same energy being given to all the universities that gatekeep all of their information? That PP is on a weird rant, disengage.

[Anonymous]

I have to admit, last year at this time when I had a high school junior, I remember rolling my eyes hard at the obsession with Dean J. Now that I have a senior who has applied, I’ve been tuning into her Thursday sessions and I do find her quite charming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does Dean J read every application? I know, this might be a dumb question, but she makes it sound like she does?

So does it mean what she said might not apply to applicants from DC, MD, or other VA areas or other states?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit, last year at this time when I had a high school junior, I remember rolling my eyes hard at the obsession with Dean J. Now that I have a senior who has applied, I’ve been tuning into her Thursday sessions and I do find her quite charming.

Dean J is the best!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA apps up around 37% over last year. Big jump - dropping supplementals really did the job. Looks like ED not much of a benefit in-state but huge out of state.

It’s a cheap trick they used. My kid was thrilled to not send off a quick application, but she has no chance of getting.

No, not at all! It was in NO WAY some sort of cheap trick!!

Look, the 2 dropped supplementals were always variations on the same two themes every year:

1) tell us about your family connection to UVA (if any) or what UVA means to you personally. And

2) portions of The Grounds sit atop land which was once a slave plantation; write a reflection of what that means to you personally.

UVA was forced into dropping legacy, as they should; all public universities should drop legacy entirely from admissions consideration. Legacy is pure nepotism. And,

UVA was also under investigation for racial discrimination in admissions and hiring. It was no secret UVA discriminated against certain racial groups by judging students on the color of their skin instead of their academic merit alone. In other words, the racism known as DEIA.

The second essay prompt was pure DEIA. It had to be scrapped.

Neither supplemental essay should have ever existed in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA apps up around 37% over last year. Big jump - dropping supplementals really did the job. Looks like ED not much of a benefit in-state but huge out of state.

It’s a cheap trick they used. My kid was thrilled to not send off a quick application, but she has no chance of getting.

No, not at all! It was in NO WAY some sort of cheap trick!!

Look, the 2 dropped supplementals were always variations on the same two themes every year:

1) tell us about your family connection to UVA (if any) or what UVA means to you personally. And

2) portions of The Grounds sit atop land which was once a slave plantation; write a reflection of what that means to you personally.

UVA was forced into dropping legacy, as they should; all public universities should drop legacy entirely from admissions consideration. Legacy is pure nepotism. And,

UVA was also under investigation for racial discrimination in admissions and hiring. It was no secret UVA discriminated against certain racial groups by judging students on the color of their skin instead of their academic merit alone. In other words, the racism known as DEIA.

The second essay prompt was pure DEIA. It had to be scrapped.

Neither supplemental essay should have ever existed in the first place.

I believe there were other supplementals, too. The two you mention were optional.
At least there were required sips in 2023-24 cycle. Something about what is your source of strength.

[Anonymous]

*required supps

You are not correct in that those were the only two supps.

[Anonymous]

Admissions didn't even write the supplementals for the last two years. You can tell from how they shared the "background" prompt.

In the past, a few admission officers have met to go over feedback about the application essays to see if we should tweak the writing prompts. This year, we had a lot more input during the update process. The change is pretty big: most applicants will answer one prompt for the UVA portion of the Common App.

this year

I'll miss the old short answers on the UVA part of the app. Dean Schlachter and I collaborated on creating many of the prompts from the back in the day and enjoyed the process of writing and tweaking those every year. That being said, UVA applicants have always given us wonderful Common App essays and we'll be eager to see your responses to those prompts this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA apps up around 37% over last year. Big jump - dropping supplementals really did the job. Looks like ED not much of a benefit in-state but huge out of state.

It’s a cheap trick they used. My kid was thrilled to not send off a quick application, but she has no chance of getting.

No, not at all! It was in NO WAY some sort of cheap trick!!

Look, the 2 dropped supplementals were always variations on the same two themes every year:

1) tell us about your family connection to UVA (if any) or what UVA means to you personally. And

2) portions of The Grounds sit atop land which was once a slave plantation; write a reflection of what that means to you personally.

Neither of these were the mandatory supplemental last year. It was something about how you'd get involved or whatever. They still did have the "optional" tell us how you are connected (but we really don't care if you are a legacy even if you are telling us you are a legacy by writing this) essay.

UVA is very good at selling transparency. Everything that is said on the IG Lives it to sell the brand and encourage more applications. If admissions wasn't seeing an increase each year, they'd be doing something wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA apps up around 37% over last year. Big jump - dropping supplementals really did the job. Looks like ED not much of a benefit in-state but huge out of state.

It’s a cheap trick they used. My kid was thrilled to not send off a quick application, but she has no chance of getting.

No, not at all! It was in NO WAY some sort of cheap trick!!

Look, the 2 dropped supplementals were always variations on the same two themes every year:

1) tell us about your family connection to UVA (if any) or what UVA means to you personally. And

2) portions of The Grounds sit atop land which was once a slave plantation; write a reflection of what that means to you personally.

UVA was forced into dropping legacy, as they should; all public universities should drop legacy entirely from admissions consideration. Legacy is pure nepotism. And,

UVA was also under investigation for racial discrimination in admissions and hiring. It was no secret UVA discriminated against certain racial groups by judging students on the color of their skin instead of their academic merit alone. In other words, the racism known as DEIA.

The second essay prompt was pure DEIA. It had to be scrapped.

Neither supplemental essay should have ever existed in the first place.

THIS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does Dean J read every application? I know, this might be a dumb question, but she makes it sound like she does?

So does it mean what she said might not apply to applicants from DC, MD, or other VA areas or other states?

No. Admissions officers are assigned regions. They’re all looking for the same things. The admissions process does not vary by region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Expecting a rejection as well. In state not over 4.4 gpa. He has good rigor but 4.36 gpa

Same. In state, 4.38, lots of rigor. High test score though, but I don’t think UVA cares about test scores at all. I will report back.

Why on earth would you say that?

If you've listened to their presentations, they always say that rigor and grades across all four years is more important than the tests.

No, Dean J does not say that. She says rigor AND grades AND test scores AND ECs, etc are important. Otherwise how do you explain a 35ACT at the 75th percentile and a 34 at the median?

Yep. Listen to what they do, and not what they say.

If scores didn’t matter they would be test blind.

Correct. SCHEV doesn’t lie. They want to see a 35 ACT and/or a 1510 SAT. Dean J has to make test optional noises until UVA decides to return to testing, which the Board is considering for fall 2027.

Remember also that she’s said the same about grades. It’s all marketing. She wants your kid to apply. She knows you want to hear these statements and rely upon them.

Where do you get 1510? The median is 1470 per most recent CDS.

Right here. SCHEV. The 75th percentile, which is where the kids of most parents reading here need to hit to get into UVA. https://research.schev.edu/rdPage.aspx?enrollment&rdReport=Enrollment.B10_FreshmanProfile

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA apps up around 37% over last year. Big jump - dropping supplementals really did the job. Looks like ED not much of a benefit in-state but huge out of state.

It’s a cheap trick they used. My kid was thrilled to not send off a quick application, but she has no chance of getting.

No, not at all! It was in NO WAY some sort of cheap trick!!

Look, the 2 dropped supplementals were always variations on the same two themes every year:

1) tell us about your family connection to UVA (if any) or what UVA means to you personally. And

2) portions of The Grounds sit atop land which was once a slave plantation; write a reflection of what that means to you personally.

UVA was forced into dropping legacy, as they should; all public universities should drop legacy entirely from admissions consideration. Legacy is pure nepotism. And,

UVA was also under investigation for racial discrimination in admissions and hiring. It was no secret UVA discriminated against certain racial groups by judging students on the color of their skin instead of their academic merit alone. In other words, the racism known as DEIA.

The second essay prompt was pure DEIA. It had to be scrapped.

Neither supplemental essay should have ever existed in the first place.

THIS!

Again. Those were not the required supplemental essays. They were optional essays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Expecting a rejection as well. In state not over 4.4 gpa. He has good rigor but 4.36 gpa

Same. In state, 4.38, lots of rigor. High test score though, but I don’t think UVA cares about test scores at all. I will report back.

Why on earth would you say that?

If you've listened to their presentations, they always say that rigor and grades across all four years is more important than the tests.

No, Dean J does not say that. She says rigor AND grades AND test scores AND ECs, etc are important. Otherwise how do you explain a 35ACT at the 75th percentile and a 34 at the median?

Yep. Listen to what they do, and not what they say.

If scores didn’t matter they would be test blind.

Correct. SCHEV doesn’t lie. They want to see a 35 ACT and/or a 1510 SAT. Dean J has to make test optional noises until UVA decides to return to testing, which the Board is considering for fall 2027.

Remember also that she’s said the same about grades. It’s all marketing. She wants your kid to apply. She knows you want to hear these statements and rely upon them.

If the job is to make people apply, why do they talk about taking the best program in all subjects? Why publicize the crazy low acceptance rates? They scares a lot of people away.

UvA doesn’t post the low acceptance rates (assuming you mean “it takes a 4.5 gpa at the 75th percentile .. to get into UVA”). That’s SCHEV, the state’s reporting service for all four year publics and privates in the state. It’s the most transparent (and only) service of its kind in the U.S. it proves GPA, SAT andACT scores at the 75th percentile, median and 25th percentile for all four year institutions in the state. It’s a godsend to counselors and parents trying to figure out where their kid has a shot at acceptance.