This is the answer. ED to UVA certainly does give your student an advantage. The applicant pool is much smaller, the schools knows you really want to attend and they have more seats available. Meanwhile, make sure you show W&M lots of love by way of DI. Apply ED2. Best of luck! |
+1 and be sure to do an interview at WM to show interest. |
Yes. And, probably come up with a compelling reason to fill out the connection to UVA essay. |
| You might be surprised by how much merit and need-based aid some private schools will offer. UVA and W&M are excellent schools, but lots of LACs — especially the less-trafficked ones, like Grinnell, St. Olaf, Whitman — will offer merit aid that can bring the cost down to match (or even beat) the in-state options. If you have a really academics-oriented student, that might end up being a more appealing option than some of the other in-state publics. For need-based aid, create an account and fill out the Net Price Calculator for a few schools (it saves your financial info, so you don't have to re-enter your data) to see what you might have available to you. https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/pay-for-college/get-started/net-price-calculator |
For WM show interest AND apply ED. You will have an edge. Demonstrated interest probably helps around the margins at RD, but hundreds or thousands of other kids have also demonstrated interest. Can’t speak to UVa. |
By law VA universities can no longer consider legacy. |
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THIS. They are both great schools, but not interchangeable. My current WM (post-COVID) junior got in with a 4.1W and 35 ACT out of FCPS by going ED. She was an amazing fit for WM for multiple reasons, including best in her high school strength in foreign languages and history/government/econ. Very pointy and applied for IR and languages, which is WM’s strength (and a path she has followed at WM very successfully) . But GPA for white girl in NOVA was 25%. UVA never would have looked at her. |
+1. And make no mistake— the “optional” WM essay is not optional. They outright said so in our information session. |
+1. My older kid went to a SLAC. Kenyon, Oberlin, Macalaster, Grinnell and St. Olaf got the price down to around WM cost. Wooster got it below. Consider Midwestern SLACs |
+1 WM seems more interested in finding the kids who really want to be there. UVA, at least in our naviance stats, has more of a hard cutoff on GPA. |
Agree. Merit to our kid got us to W&M level at a few privates. |
Our kid that got in both had the first two criteria you’ve laid out but certainly not the second. It’s competitive but come on. |
THIS! “Who comes here belongs here”. WM moto and they live this. |
To OP: any idea where your student falls in the class? Can you tell which percentile based on school profile bar chart? Knowing where your kid is relative to his or her peers at their particular school may give some info on if UVA is a viable option. I do not know about W&M but fairly confident being top 5% of class for UVA if in NoVA would give me some comfort level. |