UVA and in-state stats and laws on required numbers

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:As a parent who pays for the absurd COL in northern Virginia and state taxes and property taxes, it makes me LIVID that OOS kids with similar stats are at UVA but I’m now paying OOS tuition and airfare 4x a year for my kid to attend a similar OOS school (that favors its own residents as they should)

No one’s forcing you to live in NoVa, and no one’s forcing you to send you kid OOS. Own your decisions, quit your whining.

I guess the concept of state schools is lost on you.

There are a multitude of fine public institutions in Virginia. OP is whining that her kid may not get into the state flagship. But realistically, being from NOVA significantly drops his odds because of the geographic competition, and the Commonwealth has made the decision to fund the school at a level that requires more out of state tuitions. Plus, the school probably feels that more non-Va. students add something to the school beyond just tuition dollars. That a kid with identical stats form NJ, or Iowa, or Arizona, or California adds something to the school that another NOVA kid doesn't. Apparently, they think it's an acceptable tradeoff.

This is so yesterday’s thinking.

50 years ago, Virginia didn’t have that many well qualified kids. It WAS a good idea to get many bright out-of-state kids (and also to help financing).

Now as we all know, Virginia became a wealthy state. Northern Virgnia produces many highly qualified students. We can afford paying more tax and/or increase in-state tuition.

But the 1/3 soft quota for OOS has never changed and people do not even want to discuss this.

The in-state poplulation has far outgrown the number of seats that UVA currently provides. Since UVA obviously refuses to become larger, the only way to remedy the unbalance is to decrease OOS matriculants. Will UVA do it?

UVA should not decrease the number of OOS students. As an in-state UVA dad, I need them to partially pay for my daughter's tuition and also for better diversity.

[Anonymous]

We aren’t even bothering with Va schools.

[Anonymous]

Agree my kid just graduated from an Ivy with a 4.0. Applied EA and was deferred and then rejected. She would have gone to UVA. Their loss.

[Anonymous]

A good state university that admits OOS attracts top talent to a immigrate and pick down roots.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think UVA “refuses” to become larger. Have you seen the campus? There’s no real room to actually expand there. I don’t think they could even if they wanted to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a state school in VA of literally every type of student from top to middling to lower.

In NC you do not have that, it's UNC CH and then everything else.

My normal white boy from NOVA is at UVA now, with a less than 1400 SAT but very high class rank. Its not impossible to get in, but it is very much about GPA and class rank (even in schools who claim to have no class rank)

GPA and RIGOR
Class of 23 NOVA public. 3.95/4.5, 1560, 9 APs waitlisted. "Maxed out" on all subjects except English. Honors classes. Refused AP.

+1 This was similar to my DS as well. Except he took the 2 AP English classes, and skipped out on AP Spanish his senior year due to taking 2 post-AP courses (Data Structures and MV/LA). He's a very, very strong student -- but he was graduating from Chantilly HS with many, many other very, very strong students, so...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in VA and am so aggravated by the # of kids I see applying and not getting into UVA who are seriously bright, solid A students. It's ridiculous.
It makes me think my high schooler won't get in when he applies in a couple of years. High A student, athlete, has great SAT scores, but white male and from a middle class background/private school.

I LOVE how UNC Chapel Hill is required by STATE LAW to keep in-state at high numbers:
"As of June 14, 2024, 82% of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) are in-state residents. State law requires that at least 82% of each freshman class be from North Carolina, and the state government limits the number of non-residents to 18%."

As opposed to Virginia "In fall 2023, 65.5% of first-time freshmen at the University of Virginia (UVA) were in-state students. UVA aims to have a majority of Virginians in its student body, but doesn't have quotas for specific regions or high schools. UVA's offer rate for Virginia residents is usually higher than the rate for out-of-state students."

Why doesn't VA have this law!

In the old days less 5% of a class had an A average so sorting kids was easy but today when 50% of a class has a perfect 4.0 it's far more challenging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think UVA “refuses” to become larger. Have you seen the campus? There’s no real room to actually expand there. I don’t think they could even if they wanted to.

UVA should have expanded its campus size decades ago. If it has no real room to to expand, then I guess it’s the fault of short sighted past administrators. In the meantime if it cannot expand, it needs to up the instate student numbers at the undergraduate level. Right now it is not properly serving Virginia residents as a so called state flagship.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Are you aware the OOS students are paying $20,000 + more each year?

More like 40k more. One of the two most expensive oos schools in the country. Want more Virginians? Pay for it. Vote for it. Or quit whining. oos students are funding your school...

It won’t make a difference. UVA should be sufficiently large enough to handle virtually all of the very top students in the state. It isn’t and therein lies the problem.

Virginia can try to be more like Michigan but that won’t be a solution; Virginia will end up more like Wisconsin if it goes that route — a fine school, but not a school oos students would be willing to pay private school tuition for.

I guess then that UVA doesn’t quite have the “cachet” that some think it does. Michigan, which has the highest tuition for OOS students in the country, has no problem filling its classrooms.

It certainly won’t have the cachet if it lets in 15k more kids!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent who pays for the absurd COL in northern Virginia and state taxes and property taxes, it makes me LIVID that OOS kids with similar stats are at UVA but I’m now paying OOS tuition and airfare 4x a year for my kid to attend a similar OOS school (that favors its own residents as they should)

Why would you do something that frustrates you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think UVA “refuses” to become larger. Have you seen the campus? There’s no real room to actually expand there. I don’t think they could even if they wanted to.

When I was there many years ago there were roughly half as many buildings as today and the number of students seems about the same. I always marvel at all the new buildings every time I go there and wonder what they're used for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in VA and am so aggravated by the # of kids I see applying and not getting into UVA who are seriously bright, solid A students. It's ridiculous.
It makes me think my high schooler won't get in when he applies in a couple of years. High A student, athlete, has great SAT scores, but white male and from a middle class background/private school.

I LOVE how UNC Chapel Hill is required by STATE LAW to keep in-state at high numbers:
"As of June 14, 2024, 82% of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) are in-state residents. State law requires that at least 82% of each freshman class be from North Carolina, and the state government limits the number of non-residents to 18%."

As opposed to Virginia "In fall 2023, 65.5% of first-time freshmen at the University of Virginia (UVA) were in-state students. UVA aims to have a majority of Virginians in its student body, but doesn't have quotas for specific regions or high schools. UVA's offer rate for Virginia residents is usually higher than the rate for out-of-state students."

Why doesn't VA have this law!

Why.should VA have such a law? The schools voluntarily limit OOS admissions to a reasonable level. Virginia offers a wide variety of choices in public education at the university level. My recent graduate and rising college senior applied to the big 3 VA schools UVA, VT and W&M and were accepted. After attending accepted student days at a number of schools UVA was dropped from consideration. It is not the be all end all of undergraduate education. They both chose programs that reflected their interests attended a school ranked higher in their area of interest than UVA and received an excellent education at a cost less than would have been possible at UVA.

If your kid wants to go to UVA, then there will be options if even remotely qualified. All he needs to do is make the waitlist. As a VA resident he will then have the option to study at UVA-Wise for a year and then transfer to the main campus. Also remember, his first level of competition is those students at his school that plan to apply to UVA. Have a higher GPA and test scores than those students and he will have a better chance of admission.

In the end he may have better options than UVA. Many kids do and take advantage of those better opportunities.

UVA admission rates wont change by the time your kid applies so focus on those things that you can impact to improve his chances and lobby your state representatives for change if that makes you happy. It is unlikely to change for the reasons many have posted on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in VA and am so aggravated by the # of kids I see applying and not getting into UVA who are seriously bright, solid A students. It's ridiculous.
It makes me think my high schooler won't get in when he applies in a couple of years. High A student, athlete, has great SAT scores, but white male and from a middle class background/private school.

I LOVE how UNC Chapel Hill is required by STATE LAW to keep in-state at high numbers:
"As of June 14, 2024, 82% of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) are in-state residents. State law requires that at least 82% of each freshman class be from North Carolina, and the state government limits the number of non-residents to 18%."

As opposed to Virginia "In fall 2023, 65.5% of first-time freshmen at the University of Virginia (UVA) were in-state students. UVA aims to have a majority of Virginians in its student body, but doesn't have quotas for specific regions or high schools. UVA's offer rate for Virginia residents is usually higher than the rate for out-of-state students."

Why doesn't VA have this law!

Why.should VA have such a law? The schools voluntarily limit OOS admissions to a reasonable level. Virginia offers a wide variety of choices in public education at the university level. My recent graduate and rising college senior applied to the big 3 VA schools UVA, VT and W&M and were accepted. After attending accepted student days at a number of schools UVA was dropped from consideration. It is not the be all end all of undergraduate education. They both chose programs that reflected their interests attended a school ranked higher in their area of interest than UVA and received an excellent education at a cost less than would have been possible at UVA.

If your kid wants to go to UVA, then there will be options if even remotely qualified. All he needs to do is make the waitlist. As a VA resident he will then have the option to study at UVA-Wise for a year and then transfer to the main campus. Also remember, his first level of competition is those students at his school that plan to apply to UVA. Have a higher GPA and test scores than those students and he will have a better chance of admission.

In the end he may have better options than UVA. Many kids do and take advantage of those better opportunities.

UVA admission rates wont change by the time your kid applies so focus on those things that you can impact to improve his chances and lobby your state representatives for change if that makes you happy. It is unlikely to change for the reasons many have posted on this thread.

This. You can argue the OOS percentage should be lower, and even a small increase in in-state admits would help, but where it is currently isn’t out of the norm for a state flagship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think UVA “refuses” to become larger. Have you seen the campus? There’s no real room to actually expand there. I don’t think they could even if they wanted to.

UVA should have expanded its campus size decades ago. If it has no real room to to expand, then I guess it’s the fault of short sighted past administrators. In the meantime if it cannot expand, it needs to up the instate student numbers at the undergraduate level. Right now it is not properly serving Virginia residents as a so called state flagship.

UVA seems to take pride in not serving its residents. They should just go private and be done with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in VA and am so aggravated by the # of kids I see applying and not getting into UVA who are seriously bright, solid A students. It's ridiculous.
It makes me think my high schooler won't get in when he applies in a couple of years. High A student, athlete, has great SAT scores, but white male and from a middle class background/private school.

I LOVE how UNC Chapel Hill is required by STATE LAW to keep in-state at high numbers:
"As of June 14, 2024, 82% of students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) are in-state residents. State law requires that at least 82% of each freshman class be from North Carolina, and the state government limits the number of non-residents to 18%."

As opposed to Virginia "In fall 2023, 65.5% of first-time freshmen at the University of Virginia (UVA) were in-state students. UVA aims to have a majority of Virginians in its student body, but doesn't have quotas for specific regions or high schools. UVA's offer rate for Virginia residents is usually higher than the rate for out-of-state students."

Why doesn't VA have this law!

OP, your kid has plenty of options so get over yourself.

If you’re so set on your kid going to UVA, have them go to NOVA and do the guaranteed admission route. My very smart, UMC neighbor just did that and will be at UVA’s engineering school in August.

Otherwise transferring into UVA generally seems less competitive than applying as a high school senior.

And as has been repeatedly pointed out, there are plenty of excellent Virginia schools to attend.

Kids like yours in northern Virginia are a diamond dozen. And admission to UVA is only going to grow even more competitive as the cost of attending similarly selective private universities goes up.