A #UVA Early Action Non-Update Update

The questions about when Early Action decisions would be ready started coming in about a month ago, but the pace has definitely picked up in recent weeks. Every Q&A session I do on Instagram Stories (if you haven't joined in, I do them once or twice per week) is guaranteed to have at least a few submissions asking about our progress.

I compiled a little chart last year to show the date that early applicants saw their results online. Way back in 2006, we had Early Decision and only got 2,311 applications. We had a home-grown online app back when that was a little tedious to use and we printed every application out. It was a very different time!

We had a few years with just one deadline (Harvard, Princeton, and UVA made that move around the same time). I remember being convinced that people would applaud us for giving seniors their fall semesters back. I remember thinking that schools would follow our lead. No one followed and we got lots of complaints. In time, we gave in and added an Early Action process.

Unofficial numbers...official ones are here.

As you can see, the application numbers have increased dramatically over the years. Critics seem to think that a big increase is something we want (they also will say that the lack of a big increase is a sign of doom). They'll say our job is the drive up applications. We don't have that philosophy at in our office. One of my colleagues likes to joke that an increase of one application each year would be perfect. The critics are appeased, but we aren't burning the midnight oil to get the job done. 

Our workload is significant (so significant that the blog has fallen by the wayside this season) and we are well aware that other schools have been able to release their decisions. We aren't going to take shortcuts in our process, so we are going to keep working. 

Here's what you need to know if you applied Early Action to UVA:

1. Decisions will be posted by the end of the month.
2. All decisions are posted at once on your portal.
3. If we are able to post decisions before January 31st, I will post here and on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We will also email all applicants the news.

Hang in there, everyone! We still have some work to do.