If you were recently on the receiving end of a rejection letter from The University of Virginia, or UVA, we understand the pain. UVA is one of the top public universities in America, and they have the privilege of being picky. That doesn’t make a rejection any less disappointing, though.
In this post, we are going to give you a path forward. It is still possible to get into a dream school in the Regular Decision or ED II cycle, and we’re going to show you the way. First, though, let’s talk some numbers.
UVA brought back the Early Decision option in 2019. Ever since, the acceptance rate has been plummeting alongside a surge in applications. Most recently, for the Class of 2029, UVA experienced an 8.4% jump in applications and an 11% jump in Early Decision applications. Unsurprisingly, a larger pool of applicants for the same number of seats means fewer people get in. For the Early Decision round for the Class of 2029, the acceptance rate was 29.5% for in-state applicants and 21% for out-of-state applicants, highlighting the role that being in-state plays when applying to applicable schools. Overall, inclusive of all routes to admission, 25% of in-state applicants were admitted versus only 12.5% of out-of-state applicants — half the rate of those living in Virginia.
Whether or not you were an in-state applicant to UVA, there are four key steps that you need to start taking today to ensure that your college application process isn’t derailed by this Early Decision rejection. Now, let’s get into it.
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College admissions can be completely mystifying, and the decisions schools make can be overwhelming and confusing. Unfortunately, it’s not a code to crack and there is no recipe for a perfect application. There are things that you should do doing now, though, to strengthen your applications to selective colleges and universities.
Step One: Take a Break
First, we need you to slow down. You’ve been working hard. Between your UVA application, keeping your grades up, leadership responsibilities, and simply trying to survive as a teenager, you’ve been moving fast. That’s all well and good until you burn out, so let’s reset the speedometer. Take a few days to hang out with friends, watch a show you’ve been wanting to binge, and eat a slow dinner without rushing to get your head back in the books. Most importantly, sleep. You will do your best work after refueling.
Step Two: Strategize
Once you are feeling recentered, it’s time to figure out what comes next. First, though, you need some understanding of what happened with UVA. Of course, we haven’t seen your application. Even if we were to see your application, we can’t give a 100% perfect diagnosis because we weren’t in the room when they made the decision. However, there are a few strong possibilities for why your application was rejected that you need to consider helping inform your next step forward.
The first is numbers. UVA sets a high academic bar, especially for out-of-state students. They do not specify what it takes to get in as an in-state applicant versus an out-of-state applicant, so let’s look at the overall.
UVA is test optional, but they expect a lot if you submitted scores. The middle 50% SAT Math is 710-780 and for Evidence-Based Reading and Writing is it 700-760. That range is wide, though, and so it doesn’t really tell us much other than that they expect at least a 1400 unless you have something else pushing your application forward. The middle 50% of the ACT was 32-35. If you had a perfect transcript, submitting scores wasn’t all that important. If you had some weak spots, though, a strong SAT or ACT may have been crucial, and a weaker score could be why they chose to reject you.
The other big possibility is how you told your story. UVA wants to get to know you, and they may have rejected you because they didn’t feel like they got a strong sense of who you are beyond the numbers. We’re going to talk more about story in Step Three. First, though, let’s look at your college list.
Being rejected from UVA ED is a useful data point, but it doesn’t mean that you should only apply to schools that are “easier” to get into from this moment forward. Instead, it’s about identifying schools that are a strong match with both your academics and your interests, sort of regardless of acceptance rate. As you pull together schools that fit the bill, it’s absolutely imperative that your list is balanced. You should have 3-4 target schools — schools that you are a strong match for, 3-4 safety schools, and 2-3 reaches. These reaches may be close to the competitiveness of UVA, and absolutely must be a strong match culturally and academically such that the application reader can really envision you there.
Once you have your list, it’s time to get back to the essays.
Step Three: Essays
Strong college writing isn’t the same as writing an essay for school. It isn’t a journal entry, and it isn’t an opinion piece, either. Strong college essays and supplements bring your application to life, help the application reader envision you as part of their community, and pull the application reader out of their heads and into their hearts.
You see, application readers have to say “no” to so many more applicants than they get to say “yes” to. To speed up sifting through piles of applicants for just a few handfuls of acceptances, application readers need to do most of their work from their brains. They can’t feel too much because it slows them down. But we want them to slow down.
To force a slower read, we work with our students to tell stories. Each essay and supplement, then, should have a clear narrative perspective that speaks to the reader on a human level. You aren’t trying to impress a computer, remember. You’re aiming to connect with a human.
Step Four: Ask For Help
The last step is to accept what you don’t know. You were supposed to apply to UVA and then be done. It wasn’t supposed to go like this, yet this is where you are. The best way to get through it is to be kind to yourself, to be honest with what you want and what’s possible, and to speak with people who truly know what they are talking about — specifically about college admissions. A school counselor, trusted teacher, or family friend with experience helping older kids (but not too much older) through the college process may be strong resources. Also, we can help.
We guide strong students to outstanding outcomes, even after an ED rejection.
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