Anonymous wrote:On the VA tours we went on last spring, two of the top schools joked about the sheer number of valedictorians from any given public HS in NoVa. They know the grade inflation. It's why they are looking much harder at other things--rigor of HS, scores, etc.

NoVa public high schools don't have valedictorians.

Anonymous wrote:Exactly, why restrict yourself to being an engineer for the rest of your life by going to a college only respected by engineers lol

What college would that be?

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Anonymous wrote:Do you really have to apply ED to get in? EA isn’t good enough?

Of course not. UVA lets in many students from our HS, almost all from the top30%, ED is only "needed" for the bottom of that group. The top 15% get into UVA EA as long as they took enough hard courses and have the scores.

Is this TJ because that’s not how it is most anywhere else. At my kids school only the top 5% got in.

No, not TJ! They do slightly better. Just a test-in high school that is not top 3 in the state but is a top 10 in the state.

Biggest issue people have with UVA is so much grade inflation exists and class rank and more importantly relative course rigor are very hard to determine by parents. Median weighted gpa can be 4.1–4.2 at many schools in VA especially nova. 8 APs can be average. To truly be top 30% at the more competitive schools(usually the test-in privates or public magnets) one has to do a lot more than a 3.9uw/4.2 W with 8 APs.

Yep, it's a crapshoot. I posted in another thread about my two DS's, 2021 and 2024, at Mclean/Langley. 2021 had 3.9 UW/4.2 W with 8 APs, 1490 SAT, rejected by UVA. 2024 had 3.9 UW/4.3 W with 10 APs, 1500 SAT, accepted by UVA in EA. Same average ECs. Very slight difference between the two DSs, but one in and one out. Why? I have no idea.

If the 2nd one was admitted and first one rejected- I get it.

My kid had uw4.0/w4.4, 35ACT. The first one had scores and gpa borderline for UVA and coming out of Langley/McLean probably many kids with much higher scores, gpa.

If you look at the recent history of your high school, you can tell which high school UVA favors, and which UVA does not. ie: how many potential slots for your particular school's applicants. Also, most of UVA's students apply ED/EA, which to many people, reads "yield protection". There are top kids in our high schools (plural) who were not admitted in recent years, because they did not apply ED/EA. They had higher stats than those who were admitted (but no sob story, which may be a factor, given UVA's need to try to right its past wrongs).

To answer OP's question: money.

This was my first kid.

On naviance, my kid was in the upper right hand corner, that grouping of around the top 20-25 kids in a class of close to 600. All the subjective stuff like activities, teachers recs, etc were good.

They applied regular decision to UVA and was rejected, while kids with much lower stats who applied ED and EA were accepted.

We learned that lesson with our second kid and applied in the early round. This kid was waitlisted, which is basically a soft rejection, like many high stats kids at their school. It will be interesting to see where this kid falls on the UVA naviance chart once the dust settles, and how the rejected kid stats compare to the accepted kids.

Based on social media posts, the kids getting in are weighted towards the ones with inflated GPAs/lower SATs.

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Anonymous wrote:Do you really have to apply ED to get in? EA isn’t good enough?

Mine got in RD last year and he’s a boy

Dei hook, such as first generation college?

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Anonymous wrote:College admissions has changed across the board since we applied. In many many ways. Pay attention. It isn't just UVA.

Seriously. I think people who are indignant over UVA being more selective since 20 years ago are being deliberately obtuse.

I just dug around and here's how UVA has grown the incoming group
Fall 2009: 3246
Fall 2014: 3709
Fall 2019: 3920
Fall 2023: 3966

It looks like UVA's growth has topped out around 3900 incoming. Safe to say they don't have the space for more without building. If you have a child there right now, you know how the library construction impacted the experience.

Compare those numbers to the total number of applications:
Fall 2009: 21,839
Fall 2014: 31,042
Fall 2019: 47,827
Fall 2023: 56,439

It's tough to get in. You need to adjust expectations.

UVA needs to ditch test optional and go back to test required

Test optional has.created this mess and resulted in far less prepared and qualified kids getting spots that should have gone to other students.

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Anonymous wrote:Private schools got to expensive.

Kids that would have gone to Georgetown or Williams or an Ivy don’t want to spend $85-99k/year so more and more are going in-state instead. Very few NoVA residents will qualify for financial aid anywhere since HHI are some of the highest in the nation and COL isn’t a factor in aid.

UVA is now #24 and WM provides the size and education of those $85k Slacs.

Got it?

Agree with this. I went to Cornell waaay back in the day and my parents were able to pay the tuition. But it’s stupid-expensive now and I don’t even see it as an option for my kids. I’m hoping they’ll get into one of the VA schools, but we’ll see how that plays out when the time comes.

Nowadays, only Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale are worth the ridiculous fees they charge.

This. We told our DC it’s only Harvard, Yale, Stanford that we would be willing to go all in for. Otherwise, in state is it.

Is Harvard & Yale worth the tuition for Computer Science over top state schools like Georgia Tech ?

We have engineers in the family, and frankly, I would only pay for traditionally strong engineering schools (state or private). Those schools without a robust history of CS and engineering do not have programs that are developed enough. Since you asked. It shocks me that people choose engineering programs for the school name and not the program history, but I do think some parents are ignorant, in that regard.

Engineers in the family too, from top private schools known for Engineering, who explained top of the field Engineering vs regular mid-level Engineering jobs.
They reviewed curriculum and said (no partic order): Cornell, Penn, Princeton, CMU, MIT, Hopkins, Columbia, Northwestern, Duke, Harvey Mudd all well worth full price because the job networking and opportunities for top grad schools or startups, and the highest paying engineering jobs(leadership roles in engineering). Harvard Yale Brown all below those others for Engineering.

For backup instate schools they liked UVA over VT due to better national hiring outcomes based on positions/leadership respect UVA education has over in silicon valley and elsewhere. One of these relatives is now at google (sold their startup tech co to them and heads that division now) and knows details of Engineering /CS recruitment at the top roles.
My kid is at one of the ivies they liked for engineering and the recruitment is incredible.

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Anonymous wrote:Private schools got to expensive.

Kids that would have gone to Georgetown or Williams or an Ivy don’t want to spend $85-99k/year so more and more are going in-state instead. Very few NoVA residents will qualify for financial aid anywhere since HHI are some of the highest in the nation and COL isn’t a factor in aid.

UVA is now #24 and WM provides the size and education of those $85k Slacs.

Got it?

Agree with this. I went to Cornell waaay back in the day and my parents were able to pay the tuition. But it’s stupid-expensive now and I don’t even see it as an option for my kids. I’m hoping they’ll get into one of the VA schools, but we’ll see how that plays out when the time comes.

Nowadays, only Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale are worth the ridiculous fees they charge.

This. We told our DC it’s only Harvard, Yale, Stanford that we would be willing to go all in for. Otherwise, in state is it.

My kid and several other high stat kids we know - all boys - were essentially shut out of the Virginia universities that should have been matches based on stats (above 4.0, upper 1400s to low 1500s, strong extracurriculars and most rigorous course loads). Girls with lower stats were accepted to the same schools, as well as kids that matched DEI criteria.

If you have a son that does not check a box, you absolutely cannot count on acceptance in state, even if your kid has done everything right and has very high stats that should result in acceptance to qt least one of the top 3-4 Virginia universities.

Something is very broken with the Virginia university acceptance process.

Anonymous wrote:My niece got accepted a couple weeks ago. She had ok stats but nothing special. She goes to a run of the mill public high school in Fairfax county.

I think maybe the reason she got accepted is that she has had a job since she was in 9th grade? That's the only thing I can think that would differentiate her....

That's most kids I know though, so probably not that.

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Anonymous wrote:Private schools got to expensive.

Kids that would have gone to Georgetown or Williams or an Ivy don’t want to spend $85-99k/year so more and more are going in-state instead. Very few NoVA residents will qualify for financial aid anywhere since HHI are some of the highest in the nation and COL isn’t a factor in aid.

UVA is now #24 and WM provides the size and education of those $85k Slacs.

Got it?

Agree with this. I went to Cornell waaay back in the day and my parents were able to pay the tuition. But it’s stupid-expensive now and I don’t even see it as an option for my kids. I’m hoping they’ll get into one of the VA schools, but we’ll see how that plays out when the time comes.

Nowadays, only Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale are worth the ridiculous fees they charge.

This. We told our DC it’s only Harvard, Yale, Stanford that we would be willing to go all in for. Otherwise, in state is it.

Is Harvard & Yale worth the tuition for Computer Science over top state schools like Georgia Tech ?

I would definitely want my kid to go to Harvard or Yale. No disrespect to Georgia Tech, which is a fine school.

BTW, this is not going to be a decision we will have to make.

I am the PP who asked that question because we guided DC not to apply to Harvard & Yale as they wanted to major in Computer Science. I would say that had a pretty good chance at Yale if not Harvard. Sometimes, I do regret our decision though DC moved on.

Why not just apply to Harvard if you think she has a chance?

Harvard? No. Not now.

Harvard is toxic with antiSemitism.

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Anonymous wrote:And ironically UVa CS and Engineering programs are quite mediocre, at best

yup. My kid got in both UVA and VT for engineering and (obviously) picked VT.

+1. No brainer.

lol I love the angry vehemence of these responses. translation: my kid didn’t really get into UVA

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Anonymous wrote:Exactly, why restrict yourself to being an engineer for the rest of your life by going to a college only respected by engineers lol

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That is not what Pp was stating, genius.

This is what I stated, bozo.

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Anonymous wrote:Private schools got to expensive.

Kids that would have gone to Georgetown or Williams or an Ivy don’t want to spend $85-99k/year so more and more are going in-state instead. Very few NoVA residents will qualify for financial aid anywhere since HHI are some of the highest in the nation and COL isn’t a factor in aid.

UVA is now #24 and WM provides the size and education of those $85k Slacs.

Got it?

Agree with this. I went to Cornell waaay back in the day and my parents were able to pay the tuition. But it’s stupid-expensive now and I don’t even see it as an option for my kids. I’m hoping they’ll get into one of the VA schools, but we’ll see how that plays out when the time comes.

Nowadays, only Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale are worth the ridiculous fees they charge.

This. We told our DC it’s only Harvard, Yale, Stanford that we would be willing to go all in for. Otherwise, in state is it.

Is Harvard & Yale worth the tuition for Computer Science over top state schools like Georgia Tech ?

We have engineers in the family, and frankly, I would only pay for traditionally strong engineering schools (state or private). Those schools without a robust history of CS and engineering do not have programs that are developed enough. Since you asked. It shocks me that people choose engineering programs for the school name and not the program history, but I do think some parents are ignorant, in that regard.

Or perhaps they know that 80% of entering students change their major at least once. Hence, it was smart for my DC to turn down Purdue and Ga Tech for aerospace engineering and went with UVA. She switched majors to PPL (politics philosophy & law) at the end of her first year. Turns out she and calc 3 didn't agree with one another. She's now in a grad program at arguably the best university in the world and headed for law school.

I get it. Which school?

Anonymous wrote:Exactly, why restrict yourself to being an engineer for the rest of your life by going to a college only respected by engineers lol

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That is not what Pp was stating, genius.

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Anonymous wrote:Private schools got to expensive.

Kids that would have gone to Georgetown or Williams or an Ivy don’t want to spend $85-99k/year so more and more are going in-state instead. Very few NoVA residents will qualify for financial aid anywhere since HHI are some of the highest in the nation and COL isn’t a factor in aid.

UVA is now #24 and WM provides the size and education of those $85k Slacs.

Got it?

Agree with this. I went to Cornell waaay back in the day and my parents were able to pay the tuition. But it’s stupid-expensive now and I don’t even see it as an option for my kids. I’m hoping they’ll get into one of the VA schools, but we’ll see how that plays out when the time comes.

Nowadays, only Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale are worth the ridiculous fees they charge.

This. We told our DC it’s only Harvard, Yale, Stanford that we would be willing to go all in for. Otherwise, in state is it.

Is Harvard & Yale worth the tuition for Computer Science over top state schools like Georgia Tech ?

We have engineers in the family, and frankly, I would only pay for traditionally strong engineering schools (state or private). Those schools without a robust history of CS and engineering do not have programs that are developed enough. Since you asked. It shocks me that people choose engineering programs for the school name and not the program history, but I do think some parents are ignorant, in that regard.

Or perhaps they know that 80% of entering students change their major at least once. Hence, it was smart for my DC to turn down Purdue and Ga Tech for aerospace engineering and went with UVA. She switched majors to PPL (politics philosophy & law) at the end of her first year. Turns out she and calc 3 didn't agree with one another. She's now in a grad program at arguably the best university in the world and headed for law school.

Not at all uncommon for kids to think they want to do engineering when they're in high school, then change their minds Freshman or Sophomore year of college. If you're in a tech school without a lot of other options, then you have to transfer (or drop out). Friend of mine did two years at Mudd then transferred to Pomona.

Exactly, why restrict yourself to being an engineer for the rest of your life by going to a college only respected by engineers lol