Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My thought is this...UVA looks at class rank as main factor, let's say top 10%, and they know how to find this out...school profile, honor society inductees, etc., and W&M is a bit more holistic...GPA +SAT/ACT + gender (always favoring males a bit to balance the ratio) and the application's softer attributes like essay, extracurricular activities, etc. Two completely different schools for two completely different type students...aren't we Virginians lucky to have such choices.

I think Dean J is actually saying in the blog that Rank/GPA is not the be all and end all. They are looking at the transcript and derive their own rating from there.

Both UVA and W&M claim to be holistic. To me this is really saying they are giving more or a reading to more of the application (class and grading difficulty, essays, ECs). The implication is that other schools are just going from stats. With modern application levels (UCLA got a staggering 113K applications for fall 2018), I think what really happens is they use stats to separate out clear rejects, and then do more review with the remaining ones.

The cynic in me says all stats are open at least a bit to manipulation. It may be less evident in Virginia schools than others, but I'm sure it goes on. A case in point is Northeastern, which has skyrocketed in USNews rankings and now has a significantly lower admit than either UVA or W&M. They systematically target all of the USNews stats. Specific examples are that Northeastern only has to count standardized test scores for US applicants that are entering in Fall for USNews criteria. So Northeastern puts low stat kids on Spring academic admission (they start in the co-op program) and they have a high number of foreign students. They lower acceptance rates by actively pushing applications through marketing campaigns.

No it doesn't

+ 1. First of all, UVA's selectivity has dropped to 25.6% and Northeastern is at 29-30%. Second, even if true, you cannot compare the selectivity stats of a state public university to a private university for reasons that I think are obvious. State universities have a different mission. In states with strong in-state public school systems, the public high school counselors assist in helping students self-select to the most appropriate public universities and colleges. Hence, the required stats for UVA are very high, yet it appears "not as selective" as an Ivy. Third, Northeastern has been actively pushing all the buttons to rise on the rankings charts - this means it does everything possible to attract applications in order to turn them down thereby lowering its selectivity figure. Public universities do not do this - that is not their mission. Even so, Northeastern is still not as selective as UVA and is way below UVA on all the rankings charts.

Eh...UVA in-state acceptance is something like 37%. Not particularly selective.

Ah, the UMD person is back. Learn about how state public high schools route only the top ten percent of the class to UVA. The in-state applicant pool is fiercely competitive. The entering class of 2017 enrolled with a median 4.44 for top 25%, 4.29 for median 50% and even the bottom quartile of the class has a median of 4.14. http://research.schev.edu//enrollment/B10_FreshmenProfile.asp. 94.6% of the accepted class of 2022 is in the top ten percent of their high school class, no matter what state or country they hail from. Acceptance for the class of 2022 dropped to 25.6%. You don't apply to W&M or UVA if you aren't in the top ten percent of your class. You cannot compare the selectivity figures of in-state schools, which have a different mission, to private schools, which are hung up on massaging the figures to run up the USN&WR rankings, like Northeastern.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My thought is this...UVA looks at class rank as main factor, let's say top 10%, and they know how to find this out...school profile, honor society inductees, etc., and W&M is a bit more holistic...GPA +SAT/ACT + gender (always favoring males a bit to balance the ratio) and the application's softer attributes like essay, extracurricular activities, etc. Two completely different schools for two completely different type students...aren't we Virginians lucky to have such choices.

I think Dean J is actually saying in the blog that Rank/GPA is not the be all and end all. They are looking at the transcript and derive their own rating from there.

Both UVA and W&M claim to be holistic. To me this is really saying they are giving more or a reading to more of the application (class and grading difficulty, essays, ECs). The implication is that other schools are just going from stats. With modern application levels (UCLA got a staggering 113K applications for fall 2018), I think what really happens is they use stats to separate out clear rejects, and then do more review with the remaining ones.

The cynic in me says all stats are open at least a bit to manipulation. It may be less evident in Virginia schools than others, but I'm sure it goes on. A case in point is Northeastern, which has skyrocketed in USNews rankings and now has a significantly lower admit than either UVA or W&M. They systematically target all of the USNews stats. Specific examples are that Northeastern only has to count standardized test scores for US applicants that are entering in Fall for USNews criteria. So Northeastern puts low stat kids on Spring academic admission (they start in the co-op program) and they have a high number of foreign students. They lower acceptance rates by actively pushing applications through marketing campaigns.

No it doesn't

+ 1. First of all, UVA's selectivity has dropped to 25.6% and Northeastern is at 29-30%. Second, even if true, you cannot compare the selectivity stats of a state public university to a private university for reasons that I think are obvious. State universities have a different mission. In states with strong in-state public school systems, the public high school counselors assist in helping students self-select to the most appropriate public universities and colleges. Hence, the required stats for UVA are very high, yet it appears "not as selective" as an Ivy. Third, Northeastern has been actively pushing all the buttons to rise on the rankings charts - this means it does everything possible to attract applications in order to turn them down thereby lowering its selectivity figure. Public universities do not do this - that is not their mission. Even so, Northeastern is still not as selective as UVA and is way below UVA on all the rankings charts.

Eh...UVA in-state acceptance is something like 37%. Not particularly selective.

Anonymous wrote:But everyone (even wikipedia!) knows northeastern is gaming the system. It's private so its Presidents can do whatever they want to march up the rankings but UVA is a public and has to serve the public of Virginia.

I'm sure not everyone knows it, but the bottom line is it appears to be paying off. Applicants certainly think Northeastern is a much better school than it was not too long ago when it was viewed as a regional commuter school. Chicago and Vanderbilt obviously started far above Northeastern, but they have played the game well. Chicago in my memory had a near 50% acceptance rate at one time and is now upper Ivy League in stats. I think Michigan is probably the public that is pulling the most levers, but they have the benefit of having nearly half now from OOS.

BTW, I wrote the original post mentioning Northeastern, but it was not to compare to UVA. It was just to say that all schools play the game to different extents, even UVA and W&M. In the case of these two schools, they are quite dependent on OOS applications to keep acceptance rates down, so there has probably been a lot of focus there.

But everyone (even wikipedia!) knows northeastern is gaming the system. It's private so its Presidents can do whatever they want to march up the rankings but UVA is a public and has to serve the public of Virginia.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My thought is this...UVA looks at class rank as main factor, let's say top 10%, and they know how to find this out...school profile, honor society inductees, etc., and W&M is a bit more holistic...GPA +SAT/ACT + gender (always favoring males a bit to balance the ratio) and the application's softer attributes like essay, extracurricular activities, etc. Two completely different schools for two completely different type students...aren't we Virginians lucky to have such choices.

I think Dean J is actually saying in the blog that Rank/GPA is not the be all and end all. They are looking at the transcript and derive their own rating from there.

Both UVA and W&M claim to be holistic. To me this is really saying they are giving more or a reading to more of the application (class and grading difficulty, essays, ECs). The implication is that other schools are just going from stats. With modern application levels (UCLA got a staggering 113K applications for fall 2018), I think what really happens is they use stats to separate out clear rejects, and then do more review with the remaining ones.

The cynic in me says all stats are open at least a bit to manipulation. It may be less evident in Virginia schools than others, but I'm sure it goes on. A case in point is Northeastern, which has skyrocketed in USNews rankings and now has a significantly lower admit than either UVA or W&M. They systematically target all of the USNews stats. Specific examples are that Northeastern only has to count standardized test scores for US applicants that are entering in Fall for USNews criteria. So Northeastern puts low stat kids on Spring academic admission (they start in the co-op program) and they have a high number of foreign students. They lower acceptance rates by actively pushing applications through marketing campaigns.

No it doesn't

+ 1. First of all, UVA's selectivity has dropped to 25.6% and Northeastern is at 29-30%. Second, even if true, you cannot compare the selectivity stats of a state public university to a private university for reasons that I think are obvious. State universities have a different mission. In states with strong in-state public school systems, the public high school counselors assist in helping students self-select to the most appropriate public universities and colleges. Hence, the required stats for UVA are very high, yet it appears "not as selective" as an Ivy. Third, Northeastern has been actively pushing all the buttons to rise on the rankings charts - this means it does everything possible to attract applications in order to turn them down thereby lowering its selectivity figure. Public universities do not do this - that is not their mission. Even so, Northeastern is still not as selective as UVA and is way below UVA on all the rankings charts.

If you read the post, you will see that I was pointing out that Northeastern is the poster college for pushing all the buttons (playing the game) and it has enabled them to go from 200+ to 40 in USNews rankings. In admission rates, you are using dated figures. Northeastern hit 19% for fall 2018 entry. https://www.college-kickstart.com/blog/item/class-of-2022-admission-results Do I think they are actively attracting applications just so they can reject them? Absolutely. But the point was other schools also manage stats, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent.

Or in the case of schools like Chicago, to an incredible extent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My thought is this...UVA looks at class rank as main factor, let's say top 10%, and they know how to find this out...school profile, honor society inductees, etc., and W&M is a bit more holistic...GPA +SAT/ACT + gender (always favoring males a bit to balance the ratio) and the application's softer attributes like essay, extracurricular activities, etc. Two completely different schools for two completely different type students...aren't we Virginians lucky to have such choices.

I think Dean J is actually saying in the blog that Rank/GPA is not the be all and end all. They are looking at the transcript and derive their own rating from there.

Both UVA and W&M claim to be holistic. To me this is really saying they are giving more or a reading to more of the application (class and grading difficulty, essays, ECs). The implication is that other schools are just going from stats. With modern application levels (UCLA got a staggering 113K applications for fall 2018), I think what really happens is they use stats to separate out clear rejects, and then do more review with the remaining ones.

The cynic in me says all stats are open at least a bit to manipulation. It may be less evident in Virginia schools than others, but I'm sure it goes on. A case in point is Northeastern, which has skyrocketed in USNews rankings and now has a significantly lower admit than either UVA or W&M. They systematically target all of the USNews stats. Specific examples are that Northeastern only has to count standardized test scores for US applicants that are entering in Fall for USNews criteria. So Northeastern puts low stat kids on Spring academic admission (they start in the co-op program) and they have a high number of foreign students. They lower acceptance rates by actively pushing applications through marketing campaigns.

No it doesn't

+ 1. First of all, UVA's selectivity has dropped to 25.6% and Northeastern is at 29-30%. Second, even if true, you cannot compare the selectivity stats of a state public university to a private university for reasons that I think are obvious. State universities have a different mission. In states with strong in-state public school systems, the public high school counselors assist in helping students self-select to the most appropriate public universities and colleges. Hence, the required stats for UVA are very high, yet it appears "not as selective" as an Ivy. Third, Northeastern has been actively pushing all the buttons to rise on the rankings charts - this means it does everything possible to attract applications in order to turn them down thereby lowering its selectivity figure. Public universities do not do this - that is not their mission. Even so, Northeastern is still not as selective as UVA and is way below UVA on all the rankings charts.

If you read the post, you will see that I was pointing out that Northeastern is the poster college for pushing all the buttons (playing the game) and it has enabled them to go from 200+ to 40 in USNews rankings. In admission rates, you are using dated figures. Northeastern hit 19% for fall 2018 entry. https://www.college-kickstart.com/blog/item/class-of-2022-admission-results Do I think they are actively attracting applications just so they can reject them? Absolutely. But the point was other schools also manage stats, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My thought is this...UVA looks at class rank as main factor, let's say top 10%, and they know how to find this out...school profile, honor society inductees, etc., and W&M is a bit more holistic...GPA +SAT/ACT + gender (always favoring males a bit to balance the ratio) and the application's softer attributes like essay, extracurricular activities, etc. Two completely different schools for two completely different type students...aren't we Virginians lucky to have such choices.

I think Dean J is actually saying in the blog that Rank/GPA is not the be all and end all. They are looking at the transcript and derive their own rating from there.

Both UVA and W&M claim to be holistic. To me this is really saying they are giving more or a reading to more of the application (class and grading difficulty, essays, ECs). The implication is that other schools are just going from stats. With modern application levels (UCLA got a staggering 113K applications for fall 2018), I think what really happens is they use stats to separate out clear rejects, and then do more review with the remaining ones.

The cynic in me says all stats are open at least a bit to manipulation. It may be less evident in Virginia schools than others, but I'm sure it goes on. A case in point is Northeastern, which has skyrocketed in USNews rankings and now has a significantly lower admit than either UVA or W&M. They systematically target all of the USNews stats. Specific examples are that Northeastern only has to count standardized test scores for US applicants that are entering in Fall for USNews criteria. So Northeastern puts low stat kids on Spring academic admission (they start in the co-op program) and they have a high number of foreign students. They lower acceptance rates by actively pushing applications through marketing campaigns.

No it doesn't

19% according to this site. https://www.college-kickstart.com/blog/item/class-of-2022-admission-results

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My thought is this...UVA looks at class rank as main factor, let's say top 10%, and they know how to find this out...school profile, honor society inductees, etc., and W&M is a bit more holistic...GPA +SAT/ACT + gender (always favoring males a bit to balance the ratio) and the application's softer attributes like essay, extracurricular activities, etc. Two completely different schools for two completely different type students...aren't we Virginians lucky to have such choices.

I think Dean J is actually saying in the blog that Rank/GPA is not the be all and end all. They are looking at the transcript and derive their own rating from there.

Both UVA and W&M claim to be holistic. To me this is really saying they are giving more or a reading to more of the application (class and grading difficulty, essays, ECs). The implication is that other schools are just going from stats. With modern application levels (UCLA got a staggering 113K applications for fall 2018), I think what really happens is they use stats to separate out clear rejects, and then do more review with the remaining ones.

The cynic in me says all stats are open at least a bit to manipulation. It may be less evident in Virginia schools than others, but I'm sure it goes on. A case in point is Northeastern, which has skyrocketed in USNews rankings and now has a significantly lower admit than either UVA or W&M. They systematically target all of the USNews stats. Specific examples are that Northeastern only has to count standardized test scores for US applicants that are entering in Fall for USNews criteria. So Northeastern puts low stat kids on Spring academic admission (they start in the co-op program) and they have a high number of foreign students. They lower acceptance rates by actively pushing applications through marketing campaigns.

No it doesn't

+ 1. First of all, UVA's selectivity has dropped to 25.6% and Northeastern is at 29-30%. Second, even if true, you cannot compare the selectivity stats of a state public university to a private university for reasons that I think are obvious. State universities have a different mission. In states with strong in-state public school systems, the public high school counselors assist in helping students self-select to the most appropriate public universities and colleges. Hence, the required stats for UVA are very high, yet it appears "not as selective" as an Ivy. Third, Northeastern has been actively pushing all the buttons to rise on the rankings charts - this means it does everything possible to attract applications in order to turn them down thereby lowering its selectivity figure. Public universities do not do this - that is not their mission. Even so, Northeastern is still not as selective as UVA and is way below UVA on all the rankings charts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My thought is this...UVA looks at class rank as main factor, let's say top 10%, and they know how to find this out...school profile, honor society inductees, etc., and W&M is a bit more holistic...GPA +SAT/ACT + gender (always favoring males a bit to balance the ratio) and the application's softer attributes like essay, extracurricular activities, etc. Two completely different schools for two completely different type students...aren't we Virginians lucky to have such choices.

I think Dean J is actually saying in the blog that Rank/GPA is not the be all and end all. They are looking at the transcript and derive their own rating from there.

Both UVA and W&M claim to be holistic. To me this is really saying they are giving more or a reading to more of the application (class and grading difficulty, essays, ECs). The implication is that other schools are just going from stats. With modern application levels (UCLA got a staggering 113K applications for fall 2018), I think what really happens is they use stats to separate out clear rejects, and then do more review with the remaining ones.

The cynic in me says all stats are open at least a bit to manipulation. It may be less evident in Virginia schools than others, but I'm sure it goes on. A case in point is Northeastern, which has skyrocketed in USNews rankings and now has a significantly lower admit than either UVA or W&M. They systematically target all of the USNews stats. Specific examples are that Northeastern only has to count standardized test scores for US applicants that are entering in Fall for USNews criteria. So Northeastern puts low stat kids on Spring academic admission (they start in the co-op program) and they have a high number of foreign students. They lower acceptance rates by actively pushing applications through marketing campaigns.

No it doesn't

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hiring of short will reduce the competitiveness of uva, especially out of state. Charlottesville was not self-inflicted. This decision was uva’s.

Aside from the fact that your post is extremely difficult to understand, do you really think the average person knows who Short is?

What does "Charlottesville was not self-inflicted." mean?

I don't know what they are trying to say and I'm a UVA parent. UVA had zero to do with the Charlottesville riot and has done much since to do everything possible to make sure it doesn't happen again. It had another record year of applications, of 37,188 applicants, 11,739 were from minorities. I don't know who Short is either, but the new President is in place and doing quite well. https://www.ivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/early-decision-early-action/university-virginia-class-2022-statistics/.

Anonymous wrote:Hiring of short will reduce the competitiveness of uva, especially out of state. Charlottesville was not self-inflicted. This decision was uva’s.

Aside from the fact that your post is extremely difficult to understand, do you really think the average person knows who Short is?

What does "Charlottesville was not self-inflicted." mean?

Anonymous wrote:Hiring of short will reduce the competitiveness of uva, especially out of state. Charlottesville was not self-inflicted. This decision was uva’s.

I don't think it will have any impact. The Miller Center is tasked with studying the presidency. Are they supposed to ignore Republicans and the Trump presidency?

You may be correct that the Charlottesville alt-right rally was not technically "self-inflicted", but Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler, the primary organizers, both attended UVA. Their association with UVA does not seem to have hurt the school. I'm pretty sure Short won't spout alt-right views.

Hiring of short will reduce the competitiveness of uva, especially out of state. Charlottesville was not self-inflicted. This decision was uva’s.

Anonymous wrote:My thought is this...UVA looks at class rank as main factor, let's say top 10%, and they know how to find this out...school profile, honor society inductees, etc., and W&M is a bit more holistic...GPA +SAT/ACT + gender (always favoring males a bit to balance the ratio) and the application's softer attributes like essay, extracurricular activities, etc. Two completely different schools for two completely different type students...aren't we Virginians lucky to have such choices.

I think Dean J is actually saying in the blog that Rank/GPA is not the be all and end all. They are looking at the transcript and derive their own rating from there.

Both UVA and W&M claim to be holistic. To me this is really saying they are giving more or a reading to more of the application (class and grading difficulty, essays, ECs). The implication is that other schools are just going from stats. With modern application levels (UCLA got a staggering 113K applications for fall 2018), I think what really happens is they use stats to separate out clear rejects, and then do more review with the remaining ones.

The cynic in me says all stats are open at least a bit to manipulation. It may be less evident in Virginia schools than others, but I'm sure it goes on. A case in point is Northeastern, which has skyrocketed in USNews rankings and now has a significantly lower admit than either UVA or W&M. They systematically target all of the USNews stats. Specific examples are that Northeastern only has to count standardized test scores for US applicants that are entering in Fall for USNews criteria. So Northeastern puts low stat kids on Spring academic admission (they start in the co-op program) and they have a high number of foreign students. They lower acceptance rates by actively pushing applications through marketing campaigns.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Regarding GPAs, I worked in admissions for a short while (and a few years ago now) but I can still tell you that GPAs are not standardized in the sense SAT/ACT are. The way they are calculated varies greatly from district to school to teacher. They can be hyper inflated in many cases and less so in others. (Look at the examples in the blog link below.) The office I worked in looked at the context of the grades and the difficulty of the coursework to come up with their own index. BTW, that appears to be similar to what UVA does based on this blog from Dean J http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2018/03/can-we-talk-about-your-gpa.html

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Uh, everyone knows that. Which is why UVA or W&M have profiles on every single high school - down to the percentage of the class which has a particular GPA, which is how they tell if your child is in the top ten percent of their class. Some schools even go up to a 7.0 now. Others stop at 4.0. Some are now using a zero to 10 scale for grading, but all of that can be sized up in seconds by lining up an applicant's GPA and AP courses against the school profiile. Usually the first readers do this.

You are implying that the the college creates the profile, but that blog says the high school generates the profile and sends it to the college. Not a bit deal, but interesting.

The high school creates a profile and provides it to colleges. The colleges use that information, but then have their own way of breaking down a transcript.

http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2015/03/i-dont-care-about-your-gpa.html

This is spot on and the graph I was referencing earlier Look at the GPA distribution for a particular high school (bar graph). That's exactly how UVA and W&M ascertain where your child sits in their particular high school. . that is also how they ascertain if you student is in the top tenpercent of the class.

When schools cite the percentage in the top 10% in external sources (e.g. to USNews), they only do it when they are provided the ranking explicitly (e.g. Jimmy ranked 18th, which is top 9%). This is becoming less common, and most selective schools now have less than half with rankings. Yes, at least for Virginia high schools, colleges can figure out approximately where they rank based on the information they have.

The Dean J blog is really saying their admissions office is using these inputs but is doing their own assessment. A student could have a lower rank, GPA, etc., but could be assessed higher due to the coursework and grades on the transcript. So the GPA and rank, if available, are significant, but aren't the end product they are looking at.