University of Virginia admissions procedure hurts Jefferson students
March 31, 2014
With almost all decisions released, Jefferson students are deciding where to spend the next four years of their lives. Most people did not receive offers of admission from all the schools they applied to, which is only natural. However, many Jefferson students did not get accepted to the University of Virginia (U.Va.), which has shown an increasingly strong and unfair bias towards Jefferson students over the past few years.
Aside from the likely untrue rumors of U.Va. accepting only 75 seniors this year are the facts. Comparing Jefferson’s class of 2013’s 58 percent admittance rate at U.Va. with the class of 2011’s 75 percent acceptance rate highlights the problem at hand. With the statistics following this trend, it is only going to get worse.
Yes, most selective schools have decreased admit rates over the past few years. However, the percentages of acceptances have not dropped as rapidly or as dramatically as that of Jefferson students applying to U.Va.
Arguably the best university in Virginia, U.Va. has many opportunities to offer for Jefferson students. Its world-class academics, good social life and low, in-state tuition make it the top choice for many Jefferson seniors. Classes of 2011 and 2013 each sent 106 students, making this clear.
However, only 87 seniors went to U.Va. from Jefferson this past year. This is not a sign of the decreasing appeal of the school. In fact, applications have gone up. Instead, it shows the effects of the informal quota that U.Va. seems to be placing on Jefferson students.
Many of the decreasing number of students admitted have stellar applications and are the best of the best. As such, a large portion of them will be attending other top-tier institutions. Another flaw in the U.Va. admissions process is that students from Jefferson have received offers from statistically more challenging schools to get into, but have been flat out rejected from their in-state choice, which is wrong for a state school to do.
As a result, the students ultimately being disadvantaged by U.Va. are those who are above average, but not quite the best. Honestly, most Jefferson students qualify for U.Va. and it is understandable for them not to take everyone. That said, many very deserving students seem to get punished by the system, with students being offered a place denying it.
While UVa. also is building geographic and racial diversity, hurting a population of students for attending one high school is not justified. Other Virginia high schools do not send as many kids to UVa. as Jefferson, but UVa. seems to be forgetting that Jefferson’s students come from all over Northern Virginia and from totally different backgrounds. Additionally, the admittance of another 50 students from Jefferson would hardly have an impact on an institution that boasts an undergraduate population of almost 15,000 students.
The university should not give free passes to Jefferson students. Likewise, most Jefferson students should not count on getting into UVa. However, to deny students an offer of admission due to their attendance at Jefferson is irresponsible for the state’s premier public university.
Bob • Jun 19, 2015 at 4:18 pm
It is hard to say what the motivation from UVA is. It could be there are good students coming from the other high schools in the area, which are very good, albeit not as good overall as Thomas Jefferson. All schools are playing an admissions rate and yield game these days for . They want admissions rate as low as possible and yield as high as possible for USNews, etc.
UVA is referred to as arguably the “premier University” in Virginia. That is probably true from an overall perspective including graduate and professional schools, but William and Mary and Washington and Lee (which is private) are at a very similar level for undergraduates and may be better in some ways. Why not look there?
SShetty • Mar 28, 2017 at 11:26 am
I agree with you. The ranking by the U.S.News is based on many irrelevant factors and surely don’t reflect the academic qualities of the school. Few years ago, W&M was considered better; today for the same irrelevant reasons, UVA is ranked higher.
How about the AO? • Apr 1, 2014 at 12:11 am
OK, so you’ve considered the quality of students and admissions number… but how about what TJ students are doing to U.Va every year?
The % yield from TJ to U. Va is probably lower than from other schools, considering students from TJ generally apply to ‘reach schools’ in addition to U. Va.
Couple that with the opinion at TJ that “U. Va is the safety” and the community is not conveying any enthusiasm for U. Va.
Also consider the effort level student might be putting into their applications. If the general opinion is that getting into U. Va is given then members of the community may be led into believing that means that they do not have to work as hard on their application.
There are statistics, and there is analyzing a small sample size too rigorously without considering the human factor…
Tommy Lunn • Apr 1, 2014 at 7:03 am
The yield for Jefferson students accepted to U.Va. over the past five years has ranged from 39 percent to 49 percent, with only one year showing a decrease of more than a few percentage points. This is a similar yield to Ivy League schools such as Brown University, Cornell University and Dartmouth College. While U.Va. may act as a safety school in terms of admissions for some students, it acts as a financial safety for many more and should continue to do so.
David Varghese • Mar 31, 2014 at 11:54 pm
The mere fact that TJ simply has more high-achieving students would prompt U.Va to expect a lot more from an intellectually-distinguished pool of individuals. The resources, the academic environment, and the psychological stimulation garnered simply by separating all the “gifted” people from the average pool of High Schoolers is reason enough that U.Va would expect a lot more of a TJ student in comparison to someone who graduated from possibly an unranked High School. Many NoVA kids who don’t attend TJ, don’t have the luxury of top-notch teachers who are exceptional at what they do, so I believe that the acceptance gap is an inherent factor that U.Va may not feel obligated to expose simply because it’s a given. If you go to TJ, that doesn’t exempt you from a lower GPA than someone attending an unranked school since U.Va explicitly states that they value students who take challenging courses AND perform well in them. A last point of emphasis–I guess U.Va would naturally think that the IQ curve representative of students at TJ would not be standardized where most/all students would lie in the right extreme, whereas in other schools the normal bell curve with respect to intelligence is seen. The very scholarly environment which TJ presents, gives students a clear cut advantage when it comes to academic stimulation, and although it may seem true that U.Va has some lingering bias towards TJ in the past recent years, TJ certainly picks at the lowest hanging fruit when attempting to gain acceptance into IVY league schools and OOS institutions of exceeding prestige. I know several TJ kids who did not take AP physics their junior year, or Multi their sophmore/junior year and still made U.Va whereas many others took those challenging courses early on in their HS career–thus, it remains true, that U.Va does not value an applicants daring courseload rigor over an apparently low GPA–simply doesnt compensate in their eyes…what to take away from all of this? take challenging courses, but don’t go as far as taking so many challenging classes to ‘compete’ with all the other TJ kids to the point where your GPA is exhausted. U.Va loves students with a pretty GPA and after a certain threshold, don’t care much for an impressive SAT score, because simply put from a psychological standpoint, the correlation between IQ and projected career success and income is only +.3-.5, so they really value your work ethic notably more than your scholarly title as a student at TJ.
Bruno Delacroix • Mar 31, 2014 at 10:16 pm
It is absolutely true that UVA has a quota for TJ students although the UVA admissions office patently denies it. The facts speak for themselves.
I personally know of at least six students who were unable to gain entry to TJ, but were able to get into UVA from other high schools. Yet, those TJ students did not gain entry.
There’s something very wrong with the UVA admissions process when a TJ student cannot get accepted, but that same student is able to get accepted to Ivy League and other top-ten private colleges and universities in the country.
big brother • Mar 31, 2014 at 10:06 pm
Hey! Speaking as a current student, I remember the admissions officer when I visited for a tour in August 2012 specifically saying that they considered TJ apps different than those of the normal pool, since we had so many highly qualified students. It’s a sad fact that UVa cannot accept all of the students who apply from TJ, even though many certainly qualify. I think part of the issue is that UVa has seen declining yield from TJ in recent years (I don’t have any data, but I think that this is probably happening)–if fewer students accept, why give them so many spots? It’s a bad cycle, though; UVa has tried to increase yield by decreasing the spots given to TJ and only accepting the upper/upper-mid echelon of TJ kids, which of course will consist of many students going to Ivies or the like. So UVa sees decreasing yield–and cuts the pool even further, resulting in accepting even fewer students, so many of whom will still go on to Ivies, and so on and so forth.
I don’t know why there was a sudden drop off between the class of 2012 and 2013, though. It’s not even that fewer students accepted the offer; there seems to be a huge number that just weren’t accepted where they were previously. UVa hasn’t increased in national ranking, and their number of overall/in-state apps hasn’t seen a dramatic increase either. It will be interesting to see what happens with future classes…
(personally, I am very opposed to any sort of quota put in place by the UVa admissions office; if a kid is well qualified (especially in comparison to other kids from NoVA) they shouldn’t be hurt by having gone to TJ. I think that sometimes the admissions office forgets that TJ has kids from a wide variety of backgrouds and places, and does not show the same sort of neighborhood homogeneity that may be present in other schools. just something to think about for them, i guess).
Informed observer • Mar 31, 2014 at 9:13 pm
Perhaps part of the issue is that – *gasp* – base high schools are producing more students with highly competitive applications. While the acceptance rate of students into “selective” schools is surely higher at Jefferson than at other schools, it’s also true that more qualified young people are realizing that they don’t need to go to TJ to get into U.Va. or William & Mary, or even Ivy League schools for that matter.
Tommy Lunn • Mar 31, 2014 at 9:26 pm
While I appreciate your comment (and agree that college acceptances should not be the most important part of life for anyone), I disagree with your point. The point of the article was that U.Va. seems to be capping the amount of Jefferson students it accepts while the quality of applications remains constant. Additionally, while I cannot speak for the University’s admissions board, many of the Jefferson students who are being waitlisted or even rejected seem to have higher stats than the 75th percentiles for both SAT and GPA for the University’s admitted students. Most of these students likely boast very well-rounded and strong applications. Those two factors together are really what need to be addressed in the next admissions cycle.
Ben Moore • Jun 23, 2014 at 11:22 am
There are two trends going on that need to be highlighted. First, the TJ Admissions process is broken in terms of capturing all of the gifted FCPS students. It relies on essays and gives little weight to grades, test scores, and objective evidence (35% weighting.) As a result there are huge numbers of ms valedictorians and top STEM students not at TJ. Supporting data can be found at FCAG.org. Secondly, TJ continues to accept students who did not take Geometry in 8th grade and as such never complete Calc BC or AP Physics C. These two AP courses are a big litmus test for top stem programs. I recommend Trevor Packers twitter feed during this years and last years AP test grading. There is huge competion for a Top school like UVA from kids with 800s on Math SAT and National AP scholar qualifying scores on STEM AP courses. Many TJ students do not achieve this. Secondly, There are over 100 students scattered around FCPS who crush the average SAT and APs completed for TJ students. This is because TJs admission process is broken and ineffective.