Test Optional Policy at UVA in Fall of 2026

[Anonymous]

Scoring high on SAT or ACT is only a predictor that you are good at scoring high on SAT or ACT tests.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Interestingly every other large public VA school including W&M, JMU and Va Tech is remaining test optional.

UVA will take the lead, as usual. The Ivies have already done it.

They can't go test optional without sacrificing their medians

Not true with the elite public and privates. Not at all. UVA receives almost 60,000 apps a year. It's SCHEV median is a 4.4, 34 ACT and a 1470.That's not going to change because the demand for an elite public education at $160k a year compared to private at $400k (USC just passed $96k a year) is only going to increase the interest in top
publics. It's a simple analysis of supply and demand. All of the elite publics are seeing this, especially during covid when many families lost income and had to rethink the cost of higher ed. The next step would be for UVA/the Commknwealth to respond to taxpayers and reduce OOS and international from 26% to less than 8% as Cal, Texas, and N Carolina have done, but so far bills to do exactly that have never made it out of committee

TO allows UVA to be more geographically diverse within Virginia without hurting their scores.

Oh, please. Students outside of NoVa get high test scores, too.

1400+?

Are you joking?

No

Ok, well then yes. For those of you who can’t see past the NoVa bubble, the kids who get in to UVA from my kid’s southern VA public high school (3/10 on Greatschools) are absolutely scoring well over 1400.

My kid did. 1550 with no prep whatsoever. Also NMF. Plenty of smart kids throughout VA, not just in NOVA.

That's your kid. But my HS back in the day lots of rich kids just had someone take it for them. So actually GPA was a better indicator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly every other large public VA school including W&M, JMU and Va Tech is remaining test optional.

UVA will take the lead, as usual. The Ivies have already done it.

They can't go test optional without sacrificing their medians

Not true with the elite public and privates. Not at all. UVA receives almost 60,000 apps a year. It's SCHEV median is a 4.4, 34 ACT and a 1470.That's not going to change because the demand for an elite public education at $160k a year compared to private at $400k (USC just passed $96k a year) is only going to increase the interest in top
publics. It's a simple analysis of supply and demand. All of the elite publics are seeing this, especially during covid when many families lost income and had to rethink the cost of higher ed. The next step would be for UVA/the Commknwealth to respond to taxpayers and reduce OOS and international from 26% to less than 8% as Cal, Texas, and N Carolina have done, but so far bills to do exactly that have never made it out of committee

TO allows UVA to be more geographically diverse within Virginia without hurting their scores.

Oh, please. Students outside of NoVa get high test scores, too.

1400+?

Yes, of course. Plenty.

For openers, RoVA includes metro Richmond, metro C'ville, Lynchburg, and Hampton Roads. And there is another STEM magnet school in Hampton Roads.

Not sure if you are referring to the same STEM magnet but, yes

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[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly every other large public VA school including W&M, JMU and Va Tech is remaining test optional.

UVA will take the lead, as usual. The Ivies have already done it.

They can't go test optional without sacrificing their medians

Not true with the elite public and privates. Not at all. UVA receives almost 60,000 apps a year. It's SCHEV median is a 4.4, 34 ACT and a 1470.That's not going to change because the demand for an elite public education at $160k a year compared to private at $400k (USC just passed $96k a year) is only going to increase the interest in top
publics. It's a simple analysis of supply and demand. All of the elite publics are seeing this, especially during covid when many families lost income and had to rethink the cost of higher ed. The next step would be for UVA/the Commknwealth to respond to taxpayers and reduce OOS and international from 26% to less than 8% as Cal, Texas, and N Carolina have done, but so far bills to do exactly that have never made it out of committee

TO allows UVA to be more geographically diverse within Virginia without hurting their scores.

Oh, please. Students outside of NoVa get high test scores, too.

1400+?

Are you joking?

No

Ok, well then yes. For those of you who can’t see past the NoVa bubble, the kids who get in to UVA from my kid’s southern VA public high school (3/10 on Greatschools) are absolutely scoring well over 1400.

My kid did. 1550 with no prep whatsoever. Also NMF. Plenty of smart kids throughout VA, not just in NOVA.

That's your kid. But my HS back in the day lots of rich kids just had someone take it for them. So actually GPA was a better indicator.

DP. What on earth does this have to do with the difference between SAT scores in NoVa and rest-of-Va? If anything, it would indicate the the NoVa scores are skewed because that’s where the concentration of wealth in the state is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly every other large public VA school including W&M, JMU and Va Tech is remaining test optional.

UVA will take the lead, as usual. The Ivies have already done it.

They can't go test optional without sacrificing their medians

Not true with the elite public and privates. Not at all. UVA receives almost 60,000 apps a year. It's SCHEV median is a 4.4, 34 ACT and a 1470.That's not going to change because the demand for an elite public education at $160k a year compared to private at $400k (USC just passed $96k a year) is only going to increase the interest in top
publics. It's a simple analysis of supply and demand. All of the elite publics are seeing this, especially during covid when many families lost income and had to rethink the cost of higher ed. The next step would be for UVA/the Commknwealth to respond to taxpayers and reduce OOS and international from 26% to less than 8% as Cal, Texas, and N Carolina have done, but so far bills to do exactly that have never made it out of committee

TO allows UVA to be more geographically diverse within Virginia without hurting their scores.

Oh, please. Students outside of NoVa get high test scores, too.

1400+?

Are you joking?

No

Ok, well then yes. For those of you who can’t see past the NoVa bubble, the kids who get in to UVA from my kid’s southern VA public high school (3/10 on Greatschools) are absolutely scoring well over 1400.

My kid did. 1550 with no prep whatsoever. Also NMF. Plenty of smart kids throughout VA, not just in NOVA.

That's your kid. But my HS back in the day lots of rich kids just had someone take it for them. So actually GPA was a better indicator.

I neglected to mention my kid’s GPA if indeed it is a better indicator as you state. My kid applied as top of their class (very large public hs) with a 4.8+ GPA top rigor graduating with 5.2+.

[Anonymous]

There aren’t that many days left in January! How do we think they’ll announce the policy for next year? Through DeanJ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There aren’t that many days left in January! How do we think they’ll announce the policy for next year? Through DeanJ?

lol right?? People here were saying TO would be dead and gone by now...I bet nothing happens!

[Anonymous]

Take the PSAT and SAT enough times and you’ll eventually get a good score. How does that show the type of student they are getting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly every other large public VA school including W&M, JMU and Va Tech is remaining test optional.

UVA will take the lead, as usual. The Ivies have already done it.

They can't go test optional without sacrificing their medians

Not true with the elite public and privates. Not at all. UVA receives almost 60,000 apps a year. It's SCHEV median is a 4.4, 34 ACT and a 1470.That's not going to change because the demand for an elite public education at $160k a year compared to private at $400k (USC just passed $96k a year) is only going to increase the interest in top
publics. It's a simple analysis of supply and demand. All of the elite publics are seeing this, especially during covid when many families lost income and had to rethink the cost of higher ed. The next step would be for UVA/the Commknwealth to respond to taxpayers and reduce OOS and international from 26% to less than 8% as Cal, Texas, and N Carolina have done, but so far bills to do exactly that have never made it out of committee

TO allows UVA to be more geographically diverse within Virginia without hurting their scores.

Oh, please. Students outside of NoVa get high test scores, too.

1400+?

Are you joking?

No

Ok, well then yes. For those of you who can’t see past the NoVa bubble, the kids who get in to UVA from my kid’s southern VA public high school (3/10 on Greatschools) are absolutely scoring well over 1400.

My kid did. 1550 with no prep whatsoever. Also NMF. Plenty of smart kids throughout VA, not just in NOVA.

That's your kid. But my HS back in the day lots of rich kids just had someone take it for them. So actually GPA was a better indicator.

This day never happened.
There was never a time when lots of rich kids were paying someone to take the test for them.
Criminal activity like this is extremely rare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take the PSAT and SAT enough times and you’ll eventually get a good score. How does that show the type of student they are getting?

Yeah if by enough times you mean an infinite number of times.

A 1000 SAT cannot turn into a 1600 SAT through a lot of repetition.

The best indicator of academic performance is standardized test scores.

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/SAT_ACT_on_Grades.pdf

[Anonymous]

UVA management is mediocre and it reflects in their hesitancy to do away with TO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly every other large public VA school including W&M, JMU and Va Tech is remaining test optional.

UVA will take the lead, as usual. The Ivies have already done it.

They can't go test optional without sacrificing their medians

Not true with the elite public and privates. Not at all. UVA receives almost 60,000 apps a year. It's SCHEV median is a 4.4, 34 ACT and a 1470.That's not going to change because the demand for an elite public education at $160k a year compared to private at $400k (USC just passed $96k a year) is only going to increase the interest in top
publics. It's a simple analysis of supply and demand. All of the elite publics are seeing this, especially during covid when many families lost income and had to rethink the cost of higher ed. The next step would be for UVA/the Commknwealth to respond to taxpayers and reduce OOS and international from 26% to less than 8% as Cal, Texas, and N Carolina have done, but so far bills to do exactly that have never made it out of committee

TO allows UVA to be more geographically diverse within Virginia without hurting their scores.

Oh, please. Students outside of NoVa get high test scores, too.

1400+?

UVA stats passsd 1400 quite some time ago Last fall's entering classbad a 1520 at the 75th percente. 147O at the median and 1410 for bottom 25th percentile. Generally, OOS stats are higher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA management is mediocre and it reflects in their hesitancy to do away with TO.

lol. Try again. It's not "management" btw. It's James Ryan and the Board of Visitors and he/they have made it a T4 public university and T24 school nationwide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Watch Dean J. There’s a committee making the decision in January. They never used test scores heavily because their pool does coursework more advanced than the SAT, especially in math.

So does MIT's pool. The SAT is an important sanity check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly every other large public VA school including W&M, JMU and Va Tech is remaining test optional.

UVA will take the lead, as usual. The Ivies have already done it.

They can't go test optional without sacrificing their medians

Not true with the elite public and privates. Not at all. UVA receives almost 60,000 apps a year. It's SCHEV median is a 4.4, 34 ACT and a 1470.That's not going to change because the demand for an elite public education at $160k a year compared to private at $400k (USC just passed $96k a year) is only going to increase the interest in top
publics. It's a simple analysis of supply and demand. All of the elite publics are seeing this, especially during covid when many families lost income and had to rethink the cost of higher ed. The next step would be for UVA/the Commknwealth to respond to taxpayers and reduce OOS and international from 26% to less than 8% as Cal, Texas, and N Carolina have done, but so far bills to do exactly that have never made it out of committee

Because it's economically infeasible. UVA has been one-third OOS since I went there as an OOS student the early 90s (and UNC was less than 20% OOS back then, too). It was a financial play then, and state funding has only gotten worse in the interim.

And none of the "elite publics" has gone test-required.

I guess you are not aware tgat UVA has been financialky independent if the Commonwealth for almost a decade? If gave it up to have more academic freedom. Since then the endowment has shot up Today, UVA receives onky 6% of its budget from the Commonwealth which makes it unique among publics. Going TO will have no impact on SCHEV results/GPA test scores because the demand for a reasonable alternative to privates now heading towards $100k a year will not dissipate.