Yet another update from Student Financial Services

This time, I have some numbers for you.

572 of you have not submitted your UFAA. It is on your to-do list in the SIS and Student Financial Services has emailed you about this. If you do not submit this form, a financial aid package can not be created for you. Check your to-do lists!

463 of you are still in review. You have submitted all of your documents and the aid officers are working as quickly as possible to get your packages completed.

Comparing the numbers I was given yesterday to those I got this morning, they seem to be moving very quickly. Hang in there...I know this is stressful, but I also know that Student Financial Services is trying to be thorough and fair in awarding your aid.

As always, you can contact the Office of Student Financial Services with questions, but realize that they are probably getting hundreds of calls each day, so you may have to wait to speak with someone.

Visitors: very important parking info for April

I posted this information about a month ago, but I feel that I should repeat it now that April is upon us.

If you are visiting for Days on The Lawn, please pay close attention to the parking information on your invitation and on the website. If you are a prospective student visiting for an information session and tour this month, please pay close attention to the parking information posted on our "Plan a Visit" website.

We have rented out an entire garage for visitors this month. As a result, we will not be validating parking tickets from the Central Grounds Garage.

Just in case you don't click through, here is the information for prospective students:

**On April 4th, 6th, 13th, 17th and 20th, we will be hosting our newly admitted students on grounds for Days on the Lawn. Traffic volume in and around Charlottesville will be unusually high, and visitor parking will be extremely limited. To accommodate the visitors for Days on the Lawn, we highly discourage non-admitted prospective students from visiting on those dates. Please select a different day if your travel plans include us in April. See schedule below for more detailed information.

Please also note that the Office of Admission WILL NOT validate tickets for the Central Grounds Parking Garage from April 1-24, 2009. We will offer COMPLIMENTARY parking in the Emmet/Ivy Garage from 7am – 6pm on WEEKDAYS in April from the 1st through the 24th. WEEKEND PARKING is available at Central Grounds Parking Garage for a small fee. **

Update from Student Financial Services

The Office of Student Financial Services continues to read and post packages on the SIS student self-service pages. At this point, they seem to have 1,400 applications left, so most of you who applied for financial aid should see your packages right now.

Please understand that they are working as quickly as they can to finish reviewing your documentation.

If you have questions about your package, please contact SFS directly.

Reminder: aid packages start to show up tomorrow

Starting tomorrow at 7 AM, financial aid packages should start to pop up in your Student Self-Service accounts. If you don't have computer access at home, you'll probably want to print out the information for your parents to see.

If you have questions about aid packages, call the Office of Student Financial Services directly at 434-982-6000 or 800-391-0063. Keep in mind that this is a busy time for them, so you may have to leave a message or stay on hold for a while before a counselor is able to speak with you.

Transitioning to transfer application reading

Pardon my silence. We are back in reading mode and reviewing transfer applications is taking up most of my waking hours again.

I will try to get to the questions left in the comments in the next 24 hours.

Back to reading...

What next?

I trust that most of you have had a chance to share your feelings on the three decision entries by now. I will go through them tonight and over the weekend to answer as many questions as possible. If past behavior has repeated, some of you have answered questions for the others already. Thank you for that.


Official Decision Letters
Your official decision letters are coming in the mail. Obviously, what you saw online was just an excerpt. If you were offered a spot on the waitlist, you will also receive a "Waitlist FAQ" sheet with your letter. An entry just about the waitlist is coming.


Admitted Student Visits
Days on The Lawn are the admitted student events. Please read the entry to which I linked. These days are intended for students who have not yet made up their minds. Your formal invitation and a schedule are coming by snail mail with your official admission letter. If the DOTL dates don't work for you, you can plan your own visit, which might include staying overnight with a member of The Monroe Society or attending some open classes.


Financial Aid
Financial Aid awards for those who had their documents in before the "priority deadline" (it was March 1st) will begin to show up on your accounts on Wednesday, April 1st at 7 AM. I'm not sure if all packages will show up at once, like your admission decisions did, or if they will come up over a period of time. It takes time to ensure that all admitted students who have applied for financial aid have been properly awarded, so please be patient.


If you submitted your documents after the priority filing date, Financial Aid will process a financial aid package for you. The amount of your award will not change if you applied later, but the you may have to wait a little longer for your package to show up on your Student Self-Service page. As mentioned before, it takes time for aid officers to process these awards, and given the volume of documentation being submitted at this time of year, it can take a while for them to process and package you properly.

Admitted at UVa!

Congratulations!

Admitted students can use this entry to talk. I imagine you might also want to join the UVa Class of 2013 Facebook group to chat with your future classmates.

I'll be back tomorrow to answer questions, but know most of your questions can be answered online. Just below your letter are buttons to accept or decline your offer. If you accept, you will see a button to let you pay your tuition deposit online (it's an e-check system...you type in the numbers on the bottom of your check). On the SIS login page, you'll notice that a link to the Orientation page has been added. For now, you can just read the info. On April 1st, I believe orientation registration will open.

You have until May 1st to make your decision about whether you'll come to UVa or not. If you decide to go elsewhere at some point in the coming weeks, I hope you'll decline the offer immediately via your self-service page. That will allow us to move to the waitlist more quickly.

Again, congratulations! We are so lucky to have you considering UVa!

Waitlisted at UVa

Waitlisted students can use this entry to talk and ask questions.

The waitlist at UVa is quite large. In the past, this has been because there are so many different segments to the population here (CLAS/SEAS/SARS/NURS for both VA and OOS students). On top of that, this is our first year with the Common App and our yield (students who accept our offer of admission) may be affected. And on top of all of that, there are people out there who are saying the economy will affect college choices and schools will be pulling large numbers off their waitlists. I honestly don't think we can predict what will happen at this point.

About 4,000 students were offered a spot on the waitlist and usually half accept the offer (yes, you have to respond online to the offer of a spot). You are not ranked. There have been years when we've taken 50 students off the waitlist and years when we've taken 150 students off the waitlist.

For now, you need to look at your other options and think about which one feels right to you. Some of you will want to hold on and see what happens with the waitlist and others will want to fully invest themselves in another school. Either way, you need to submit a deposit at a school by May 1st to ensure yourself a spot in another school's freshman class. If you are offered a spot in our class and you decide to accept it, you'll have to write to that other school and withdraw your name from the class (you may lose your deposit at that school). Just remember that you can't "double deposit".

It may be helpful to look at past waitlist entries, which will give you a sense of the timeline and answer frequently asked questions. Feel free to direct questions to me and stay tuned over the weekend for replies. Also know that your envelope will contain a "Waitlist Frequently Asked Questions" sheet that will answer the most common questions (is the list ranked, what do I do now, what's the time line, etc.).

CavDog hopes you find a quiet spot to think about your options.

Denied by UVa

Denied students can use this entry to talk and ask questions.

I'm so sorry this sort of entry is even needed. I hope you all can look at your options and get excited about one of your other schools. If your immediate reaction is "I'll transfer", don't let that plan keep you from getting involved in campus life at the school you choose. I think many students come to think of their next choice as "home" and can't imagine leaving it after a little while.

I hope you'll read this post and remember that this decision is probably about our numbers. You didn't do anything "wrong" (a common question). Venting is okay, though. Feel free to share your thoughts. I'll leave you until tomorrow, when I'll be back to answer questions.

CavDog wishes he knew what to say to make this easier on you.

Letters have left the building!

The first load of letters has left Peabody Hall! From here, they'll go to be metered and sealed at the central mail room. They'll probably be in the US Mail by later this evening.



With that, I'm signing off until tomorrow. Know that there are tech people watching to make sure the decision release goes smoothly. If there are any glitches, please post a comment and I will pass them on. I'll answer questions left on the three entries that are about to post (admitted, waitlisted, and denied) when I come back tomorrow.

Good luck!

A note of thanks

Some of you won't be visiting this blog after today, so I feel that this is a good time to express my thanks. Thank you for being part of this blog. I firmly believe that without comments, a blog is really just a journal. Blogs are supposed to initiate conversation and discussion. Your participation has made blogging a joy. Seriously.

We are going to make some of you very happy at 5 PM and we are so, so excited about that. However, we are going to upset a good deal more at 5 PM and that weighs very heavily on us. I console myself with the knowledge that you will have other attractive offers to consider and some lucky school is going to be made better by having you in their community.

Regardless of what your status page says, you are going to be just fine. You are going to attend a great school and you are going to grow tremendously while there. You're going to have "ah ha" moments like you've never had before. You're going to learn from amazing, inspirational professors. You're going to meet people with whom you will stay friends for the rest of your lives. You're going to pull all nighters studying. You're going to pull all nighters not studying. You are going to have highs and lows, you're going to have great successes and you're going to fail miserably at something. What's going to make or break those experiences is your response and your attitude, not necessarily the location of the events.

Remember that your decision is not a statement about your value. With the number of applications we had, we were not able to admit all of the qualified students. Many of those who wind up on the waitlist and deny list are perfectly capable of doing the work at UVa. Our first-year class just isn't large enough to accommodate everyone.

Thank you for reading and sharing yourselves with me for the last few months. Best wishes to those who won't be back to the blog after this. To the rest, I hope you'll chime in now and then while you're a UVa student to give the next group of students a little advice and comfort as they take their turn on this roller coaster.

Can you believe it?!? The big day is finally here! Good luck, everyone!

How CavDog deals with decision day stress

A very nice person dropped off some dog treats this morning, so perhaps the carnage will be abated.

Statistics for the Class of 2013

Here are some preliminary numbers for you to crunch on. Please understand that I do not have additional statistics. I am giving you all I can right now and the office is very, very busy today.

The Office of Institutional Assessment is the source of all official statistics about UVa. Their website will update in time with more data.

First of all, there were 21,839 applications. We expected a jump in applications and a jump in the number of incomplete applications because of the move to the Common App. We had 18,598 applications last year.


Total number of applications: 21,839
Total number of VA apps: 7,663
Total number of OOS apps: 13,764

Overall offers: 6,331 total offers (28.9%)
Total VA offers: 3,276 offers (42.7%)
Total OOS offers: 3,055 offers (22%)

Enrollment goal: 3,240 first-year students

The offers numbers for VA and OOS are similar because yield for OOS is generally lower and we need to offer to more students to get the number that we need to enroll.


International Applications: 2,188
(1,484 last year...might be a sign of UVa's name recognition abroad)

Middle 50% on the first two parts of the SAT (offers only): 1300-1480
% in the top 10% of their high school class (offers only): 91

You can see statistics from past years by clicking the "statistics" tag below.

A few notes about today

Just a quick run down of some things of which you should be aware.

1. The release of decisions is pre-programed. The system will show the decisions at the appointed time. There are people in the Office of Admission and in the tech department who will monitor the system. The system has been tested many times and we don't anticipate any problems.

2. I will post three entries for you to talk about offer, waitlist, and deny decisions. I will step away from the blog until tomorrow so you all can chat about things. I realize that some will want to blow off steam and that's fine. You all have done a great job of moderating yourselves and I will leave you to do that.

3. Blogger, the site that hosts this blog, has some scheduled downtime this evening. The blog might be down for about 10 minutes.

4. I realize that you are going to be seeing decisions for a few other schools tonight. I hope you'll be gracious and compassionate when it comes to sharing your news with classmates.

5. I'll be posting a number of times today to pass the time. I will have some stats to share with you this afternoon.

Good luck, everyone!

Where to click for your decision

I thought a screen shot would help with questions about where to see decisions on the big day. You will not see the area where the link is right now. If you don't know what time that means for you, go to Time.gov and click on the east coast.

The screen shot is from the test side of the system. Your screen might have some different information showing. Don't worry about that. This is just to show you where the link will be.

Click to enlarge!

Good news!

I have been given the final word! Hope you like my hastily put together video. I'm uploading a low quality version for now (uploading the full quality would take at least 5 minutes). I hope you find my iMovie skills slightly better than last time. Good luck, everyone!

Last call for those who haven't logged into the system

We sent an email out a few hours ago to people who had not logged into the system as of yesterday morning. Please be sure to practice logging in so you aren't left waiting for your decision by snail mail.

The staff member who answers the uvaapplicationinfo@virginia.edu email account has seen an increase in emails asking for login info to be resent, so it seems as though a good number of you already acted after reading my last entry about this.

By the way, our Student Council officially recognized Noble, dog of Vice President Pat Lampkin and Vice President Wayne Cozart, as the official dog of the University. CavDog will settle with being the official dog of UVa applicants and the Office of Admission. :)

An admission free weekend

I had hoped that not posting over the weekend would allow most of you to relax and not think about the admission process, but I can see from the comments that this wasn't possible.

Now, the force you to think about something other than your application for a moment, I have a slide show about CavDog's weekend.



No updates yet. As I always promise, I'll let you know when I hear something.

Rodman & College Science Scholars update!

I've been away from my desk most of the day, so I'm sorry for the very late update. The Rodman Scholars Program has begun to email students and the College Science Scholars letters will go into the mail on Monday.

Please understand that I don't know the method Rodman is using to email students. I don't know if they are sending batches of emails or contacting students one-by-one. I don't know the time they started or when they they will be done. As always, I will post updates as I get them.

Notification for these programs is sent early to allow students a little extra time to make travel plans to visit us for the Scholars Day on Saturday, April 4th. April is a difficult time to plan programs because of religious holidays (and we can't avoid every holy day, but we try to), so April 4th we deemed the best day for Scholars Day. We hope you'll be able to make it!

What would you tell the juniors?

I'm sorry for my silence last night. I was in Richmond at a program for juniors and their parents at Cosby High School. This time of year is always interesting because we work with seniors who are at the end of this process and juniors who are just starting at the very same time.

Which leads me to ask the seniors to leave a few comments with words of wisdom for the juniors. What do you wish someone had told you before you started this process? What would you have changed about your college search?


I'm the Dean on call today, so I won't have much time to answer your questions during the day. I'll do my best to respond to the comments that were posted last night and get you an update from the printing room, but I might not be able to post until this evening. Hang in there!