UVA drops legacy admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As predicted, schools are laser focused on Chief Justice Roberts's comments in the recent AA case and making more use of the essay tool to get the diverse classes they covet.

UVA just announced it will create a new essay to allow students to self-identify as minority, etc. It's also scaling back/eliminating legacy admissions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/01/uva-legacy-admissions-college-application/

https://news.virginia.edu/content/after-supreme-court-ruling-uva-adjusts-admissions-practices

While this may be more labor-intensive than checking the box on race-based admissions, I imagine not much is going to change in the commitment to creating more diverse classes and ensuring better representation from historically oppressed groups. Which is a good thing.

UVA isn't diverse to begin with so this is funny!

+1

If you claim to be a minority, you will get in to UVA these days - they are that desperate.

That isn't ... how ... it ... works. I mean, you can't agree that UVA lacks diversity and then make that statement. It doesn't make sense.

haha so true +1. Have any of the PP's even been on grounds recently? I have, and every time, I feel that I'M in the minority (in a good way) as a white woman. They have really emphasized this over the past 10 years and it does show.

Why would making you a minority be a good thing? Just curious. Asians and Whites make up more than 75% of college-ready seniors each year.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand how they are getting rid of legacy preference which is HUGE at UVA for OOS applicants. If you're OOS and a leg, you get put into the instate pool.

[Anonymous]

UVA is diverse - have you been lately?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So interesting. My son has been inclined not to apply because a classmate is a family member of a very high-ranking person (not faculty) at UVA. I wonder if that kid will still get a thumb on the scale.

Your son is an idiot if he feels this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how they are getting rid of legacy preference which is HUGE at UVA for OOS applicants. If you're OOS and a leg, you get put into the instate pool.

They have not said that they are getting rid of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As predicted, schools are laser focused on Chief Justice Roberts's comments in the recent AA case and making more use of the essay tool to get the diverse classes they covet.

UVA just announced it will create a new essay to allow students to self-identify as minority, etc. It's also scaling back/eliminating legacy admissions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/01/uva-legacy-admissions-college-application/

https://news.virginia.edu/content/after-supreme-court-ruling-uva-adjusts-admissions-practices

While this may be more labor-intensive than checking the box on race-based admissions, I imagine not much is going to change in the commitment to creating more diverse classes and ensuring better representation from historically oppressed groups. Which is a good thing.

Nothing in either article says they are dropping legacy, in fact the WAPO article concludes "The U-Va. message did not say, however, that alumni connections would no longer be considered."

It dropped legacy check-the-box. Same as race. So, yeah, it dropped legacy in the same way it dropped race-based considerations. Whether or not that's a wink-wink, nod-nod remains to be seen. But at the same time it complied with the SCOTUS by dropping race check-the-box, it also dropped legacy check-the-box. That's the point.

Can you point to the line in either article that says they dropped the legacy check box? The UVA article is explicit that they dropped the race check box, but doesn't mention the legacy box

Uh, it’s the second sentence of the Post article. Did you read it?

NP. I read it. Towards the bottom is this quote:

“If anything, it enhances the importance of being a legacy by giving students a chance to say why it matters where their parents went.”

So, now instead of just being sorted into a pile by a checkbox, my kids can explain at length the multiple generations and family members who have walked the Lawn and how meaningful that makes UVA to them.

[Anonymous]

What’s weird is that I know UVA considers legacy but in the past I thought that they didn’t have a check box for it. I remember looking at their questions when my older child was applying to college (didn’t apply to UVA) and I thought they just relied on the common app information about where the parents went to school.

My DD is applying ED as an OOS legacy and I figure it’s up to UVA whether they consider that. We can’t control it. It’s her first choice regardless and even if they consider legacy it’s still a very hard OOS admit. We never considered it a sure thing and UVA has always made that clear.

[Anonymous]

I spent my college summers living with a family member in Charlottesville and working as a line cook at a restaurant. I attended a crappy school out-of-state but everyone assumed I was a UVA student.

Do you think my kids can write about how they hope to achieve what their mother never did? 🤪🙄

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s weird is that I know UVA considers legacy but in the past I thought that they didn’t have a check box for it. I remember looking at their questions when my older child was applying to college (didn’t apply to UVA) and I thought they just relied on the common app information about where the parents went to school.

My DD is applying ED as an OOS legacy and I figure it’s up to UVA whether they consider that. We can’t control it. It’s her first choice regardless and even if they consider legacy it’s still a very hard OOS admit. We never considered it a sure thing and UVA has always made that clear.

Until the affirmatively state that they will not look at that information, I see no reason to view this as anything other than PR

[Anonymous]

UVA puts OOS legacy applicants in the instate pool of applicant where their odds of gaining an offer of admission are better. This is NO secret. It’s been this way for decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So interesting. My son has been inclined not to apply because a classmate is a family member of a very high-ranking person (not faculty) at UVA. I wonder if that kid will still get a thumb on the scale.

Of course. The kid whose mom was class of '95 and works at a regional law firm in Minnesota is the one they are targeting not the kid who has a dean willing to put in a good word

It's really aggravating. The kid is such an inferior candidate. I would love to give more details but it would make everyone so easily doxxable.

Anyway, to speak more generally: in a situation with a smallish school at which only 1-2 students (sometimes 0) are accepted every year, is it a waste of time to apply when you know one seat is a lock for someone already? Or does taking an inferior "connected" student shame the admissions committee into accepting another student or two from the same school, so their favoritism isn't so transparent?

I forget where I read this (this board? A book? An article?) but I heard at one of the local privates (St Albany’s?), a dimwit with great connections was accepted into a top school (Chicago or Princeton?). Not wanting to make it look so obvious that this dimwit was admitted solely because of connections and taking a space from a more qualified candidate, that school accepted everyone who applied from his school that year. Granted, it was only 5 kids but still.

I may have gotten some details wrong but that was gist of story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA puts OOS legacy applicants in the instate pool of applicant where their odds of gaining an offer of admission are better. This is NO secret. It’s been this way for decades.

This is not true. UVA admissions has been quite clear about this. They have information for legacy families where they clarify that this is not how they consider legacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA puts OOS legacy applicants in the instate pool of applicant where their odds of gaining an offer of admission are better. This is NO secret. It’s been this way for decades.

I’ve heard them say this isn’t the case at the alumni meeting. You have a better chance, but you aren’t counted as in state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVA puts OOS legacy applicants in the instate pool of applicant where their odds of gaining an offer of admission are better. This is NO secret. It’s been this way for decades.

I’ve heard them say this isn’t the case at the alumni meeting. You have a better chance, but you aren’t counted as in state.

Exactly. I think part of the purpose of those meetings is to make it clear that it’s really hard to get in and to get alums to accept that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s weird is that I know UVA considers legacy but in the past I thought that they didn’t have a check box for it. I remember looking at their questions when my older child was applying to college (didn’t apply to UVA) and I thought they just relied on the common app information about where the parents went to school.

My DD is applying ED as an OOS legacy and I figure it’s up to UVA whether they consider that. We can’t control it. It’s her first choice regardless and even if they consider legacy it’s still a very hard OOS admit. We never considered it a sure thing and UVA has always made that clear.

Until the affirmatively state that they will not look at that information, I see no reason to view this as anything other than PR

They would never make such a statement when they can quietly do away with the practice.