Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
This is such a ridiculous discussion.
Georgetown is way more selective than UVA: 16% vs 22%. And that's before taking into account the fact that all Common App colleges have artificially low acceptance rates, including UVA. Georgetown does not participate in the Common App.
But financially, instate UVA is OBVIOUSLY the better choice.
Academically, there is no question GU is more reputable.
Done.
End of discussion.
I think you are new to college admissions. If you research it here or anywhere online you will learn that you cannot compare the selectivity/acceptance rates of our nation's public universities to that of private institutions. There are many reasons why but primarily, and certainly in Virginia and California, the applicant pool to the top public schools is self-selecting. Due to SCHEV and other statistical resources, applicants know exactly where they stand vis-a-vis the prior entering class, so can make a better call on chances of getting in than they can for privates. This is also done by the public high school counselor whose job it is to direct applicants to the most suitable public university. When we met with the Langley high school counselor there was absolutely no question that our DD was not UVA material. And if we had pushed on it, the counselor whips out the SCHEV statistics and Naviance to demonstrate why. We could readily see she had a chance of getting into GMU but never UVA or W&M. The public high school counselor will not support the application. Can a parent force it? I suppose so but I've never heard it done. And remember that public high school counselor (whose reputation is on the line with the public universities and often wants to move into admissions at one of those schools) won't be apt to work the letters of recommendation and check off the "most rigorous" box or rave about the student in the advisor's own letter of recommendation (in VA the public high school counselor writes their own letter to the public schools). Because of this system of screening and checks, the applicant pool to the top publics is very elite and primarily the top 6% of public high school students. Hence the rate of selectivity is lower than privates - and remember that privates can throw millions of dollars at marketing to inflate the applicant pool class in order to drive down the acceptance/selectivity numbers. Publics don't have those resources. This is why USNWR doesn't require institutions to submit selectivity numbers anymore . . . they are too easily manipulated by the private institutions, like Northwestern, U of Chicago and Northeastern.
The result is that the top publics have higher percentages of acceptance than top privates: U of Florida is 31.1%; the University of Michigan is 26.1%; UCLA 14.3%; Berkeley is 17.5%; the University of Texas (on a very different system) 32%; the University of North Carolina, 25% (OOS is 10.5%). All of these schools have become very difficult to get into - especially for OOS as states drive down on the number of OOS as demand by taxpayers increases.
So UVA at 22.6% (OOS 17%) is right in line with the other publics. But even amongst publics you can't compare precisely because of the system of applicants and the screening role of the public high school counselors. But all counselors will tell you that getting in OOS at UCLA, Berkeley, UNC, etc. is unlikely because of the quality of competition. In California, the OOS class is limited to only 10% as is UNC.
A better indicator of prestige and quality of student are the SCHEV statistics which show that the applicants who arrive on campus have higher stats than Georgetown. Last fall, the 75th percentile of enrolled (the students who actually showed up, not the accepted class, which is higher; some turn down UVA for Ivies or SLACs), was a 4.52 weighted GPA; a whopping 35 on the ACT and a 1510 SAT/=. The median has a 4.39, a whopping 34 ACT and a 1450. Even the bottom 25th percentile has a 4.23, a 32 ACT and a 1400. Now someone will come on and say SCHEV doesn't include all the entering students but SCHEV is a FAR BETTER tool than exists for the private schools in other states. Every Virginia parent should be using it as a reference guide for all privates (yes SCHEV covers privates too) and publics. All the stats you need to know are there. Just enter the name of the college and dig in. Then go to your high school Naviance or equivalent and compare your student's stats to those of his own class. Uou will come away with a very realistic view of your child's chances of getting into Virginia schools. Because we have this tool, applicants are better able to apply to the institutions that they have a chance of getting into. There is no equivalent in other states.
https://research.schev.edu//enrollment/B10_FreshmenProfile.asp
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