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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  For the record, I'm neither a UVA hater nor a MD booster.  I'm a Virginian whose class of 2018 dd had the stats to attend both UVA and William and Mary.  I was open to both schools, but I admit I did suggest to her that W&M was a better choice for the undergraduate student of the humanities and pure sciences, if only because of it's human scale and the close contact with the faculty that that provides.  She chose W&M.  If she had chosen UVA, I would have been fine with that since her probable major is an unusual one with a small, excellent department at UVA.  Just guiding her through the process was fascinating, tho stressful.  I learned a lot and hence this thread.

[b]It is possible, certainly, that an avalanche of international students will enable UVA to continue to march ahead.  I'm skeptical, however.  The number of international students in the US has fallen with the advent of the Trump administration.  Further, why wouldn't the political pressures as you cite in CA also be applicable in VA if UVA were to try to drastically increase it's number of full pay international students?  [/b]

The point of the bell curve is that there are only so many students of exceptional ability.  These students drive selectivity.  There is more competition for them than ever before, both among publics and privates.  If UVA manages to increase it's instate apps, it will not be among those highly talented students.  They already go to UVA at what I think will be seen to be a maximum rate.  Anecdotally, I personally know two students who graduated from FCPS recently with stats at the higher end of the UVA range.  One went to BC, another to Tulane, both with significant merit aid.  This is the new reality I'm talking about -- it affects even in state students.

People seem to think that there is an endless supply out there somewhere (China) of brilliant kids who will push American schools to greater and greater glory.  I just don't think that's true and I don't see it happening.  
[/quote]

So is your DD graduating this year (you said class of 2018). Congrats, if so!  A lot has changed just in the last four years.  I doubt that my DC in second year at UVA would have made it in for the class of 2022.  I read the EA results and the RD results on college confidential.  A lot has changed nationwide in the last four years.  Almost all colleges are citing record applications (no surprise there).  The no. of international applications are up.  Parents are concerned.  There are plenty of UVA students with superlative records who could get into UVA.  You keep citing the SAT scores and saying there are only 50K students in the USA who score that high but y ou are overlooking all the ACT students.  My DC had a 34 and a 35 on retake.  I thought that was amazing at the time.  But if you check College Confidential you will see 34s rejected outright.  UVA doesn't practice yield protection - it's simply that the students applying are that good.  One of the reasons selectivity is "high" at 26.7% is because high school counselors show students the Naviance charts for their high school so many - like my other two children - didn't even try for UVA or W&M because they knew there were 60 kids in their own high school with superior stats ready to march into UVA.  It made no sense to apply.  I don't see population dropping, or GPAs and test scores dropping but even if they did, the GPA would drop to a 4.40 (Schev has it at 4.47 for top 25% of enrolled students at UVA last fall) and a 32-33 ACT, which are still fantastic scores.  AS to why Virginians won't follow California - there's 100 different answers to that running from politics to geographical preferences to the VA General Assembly to what UVA's Board of Visitors wants.  Just because California shifts in response to voter pressure does not mean UVA will follow suit.  I'm not even sure that would be a good thing to increase the number of Virginia seats.  I just disagree with you that things are "topping off" and that this bubble will burst.  Just for this class at UVA one of the Deans posted that there are 10,000 on the waitlist.  Yes, 10,000 for a class already selected of 6,000.  And total applications were 37,000+.  This isn't going to stop. [/quote]

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