Opening the UVA acceptance decision during the senior year of high school is a core memory for Hoos. With the recent release of admissions decisions for the class of 2029, many high schoolers across the country experienced that same moment of excitement to become a Cavalier. However, as the number of college applications rises, an increasingly small percentage of applicants are given the opportunity to attend Mr. Jefferson’s university.
The first round of decisions, called “Early Decision,” were released on December 14th. The Early Decision round saw 500 more applications during this year than last year, resulting in an acceptance rate of 29.5% for in-state applicants and 21% for out-of-state applicants.
Most universities have a higher acceptance rate for early decision than in other admission rounds, but the benefit of applying so early is debated among those in college admissions. Many athletes who are already committed to universities apply Early Decision, so their subsequent acceptance inflates the overall acceptance rate of these schools. Furthermore, Early Decision is legally binding, meaning that admitted students are required to attend the school. Because Early Decision applicants don’t get to weigh the pros and cons of multiple schools, they can’t weigh their financial options, and most schools that offer early decisions are expensive. However, if a student is 100% sure that they want to attend a particular school, early decision is a great option that demonstrates interest and finishes the college decision process months ahead of their peers. In Early Decision this year, UVA welcomed 1,282 new Wahoos!
The second round of decisions that came out was Early Action on January 31st. A whopping 41,885 students applied Early Action this year, with 11,240 from Virginia and 30,645 from out-of-state. Early Action yielded a 25% acceptance rate from in-state and a 13% for those out-of-state this year. Popular social media presence and UVA Dean Jeannine Lalonde, known as “Dean J,” notes in a post that it is important to separate in-state applicants from out-of-state applicants when reporting the data, as residency has a major factor in admissions decisions. The University of Virginia requires that 66% of their class is from Virginia.
Early Action applicants received one of three decisions: acceptance, rejection, and deferral. Students who are deferred are reevaluated alongside the Regular Decision applications, before they are given an official acceptance or rejection. Those decisions were released on March 14th and were more competitive than both of the early rounds. UVA received 3,519 applications from in-state and 14,049 from elsewhere, resulting in an 11% and 9% acceptance rate respectively.
In total, UVA received over 64,000 applicants this year, which demonstrates a 5,000-application increase from last year. The overall acceptance rate in-state was 23%, and out-of-state was 12.5%. Both pools of applicants saw a slight decrease in acceptance rate from last year.
UVA will remain test-optional this year and the next. In last year’s admission cycle, only 50% and 16% of admits submitted their SAT and ACT scores respectively. Recently, elite schools have begun to require– test scores again following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is yet to be seen if UVA will follow that trend and how it would shape the admission of Hoos for years to come.
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