Peabody is the building, Jack is the dog, and I'm Dean J (she/her, btw).

There are years of posts here. The search box works well, but please consider the age of the posts when you find them. The college admission process changes every year!

References to emailing updates to your application are from the years when we didn't have the current applicant portal. Please follow the instructions in your portal to submit all updates.

Welcome to the blog and thanks for reading!

About this blog

Welcome! I quietly started this blog in 2005 to document my first year at the University of Virginia. As traffic increased, it was clear that posts about the admission process were more popular than ones about my reaction to events in Charlottesville, so the purpose of the blog evolved to being about the admission process alone.

Why Peabody?

The Office of Admission is located in Peabody Hall (along with the Dean of Students on the second floor). So the blog is a series of notes written to students from my office in Peabody Hall.

Why Blogspot?

I've considered moving everything over to a more official home on the UVA website a few times, but blogspot has been a good, free home for the blog all these years.