Spring Tuition Deposit Payment Issues

For you spring admits, we are aware of the difficulties surrounding payment of the tuition deposit.  Our information technology group is working very hard with our third-party payment vendor in order to get this bug fixed.   This situation is far from ideal. Please hold tight and I'll let you know when things are up and running.  Thanks for your patience everyone!


UPDATE:  The issue should be resolved by 6pm tonight.  Please let us know if you can complete the transaction, or if you're having trouble getting through.  

Spring 2014 Transfer Decisions

All transfer decisions will be posted online this evening at 5PM EST.  Remember that you have to consult your SIS account to get your decision. You'll have information about this in your UVA confirmation email. We will post all decisions online, but we will only be mailing letters to admitted students.  A student is either offered or not offered.  There is no wait list process for spring admission.

Do not call the office to ask for your decision.  We do not give out decisions over the phone. To get to your account, go here and click on the "SIS Login."   If you don't remember your account information, seek out the help information on the left-hand side of that same page. 

About 15% of applicants were admitted. If you were not admitted, you might have the opportunity to "roll over" your application for fall 2014 consideration.  Please follow the directions in your online letter.  This option is not available for students who are entering their sixth semester at a four-year institution (this is not a community college) next spring.  Unfortunately, these students are no longer eligible to come to UVa.

The Fall Transfer Open House is this Friday

Some of you may have received an email from us and some of you may have spotted our website earlier this month. Our next open house is this Friday, November 1 at 10AM.   Looks like it will be a beautiful day. You will hear from current students and faculty about the application and transition process to UVA. See the schedule below.  The day will begin in the Newcomb Hall Theater and progress from there.  Please register for the event here. Read the entire page and then click on "Register" on the bottom left.   This registration process will instruct you to open a myUVA account if you don't already have one.

Open House Schedule of Events:

10:00am - 10:45am: Transfer Information Session
11:00am - 11:45am: Presentations Given by Individual Schools
12:00pm: Walking Tour of Grounds

The day should end between 1:30-2PM. 

We hope you can join us!

College Fairs at NVCC Campuses

If you are a student at the Northern Virginia Community Colleges, and you missed our information sessions last week, you can catch us at the following college fairs. 

*Woodbridge Campus - Tuesday, October 22 - 10:30am-12:30pm
*Annandale Campus - Tuesday, October 23 - 10:30am-12:30pm
*Alexandria Campus - Thursday, October 24 - 10:30am-12:30pm

*The Manassas fair occurred a couple of weeks ago. 

Deadline Day

As you know, today is the deadline for the spring application!  The Common App is beautiful and bulky.  Don't wait until the last minute to apply!

As long as you apply on time, we'll accept transcripts after the deadline, but those should get here in the next few days. 

That Pesky Registrar's Report

For those of you who have started the application, you might have seen the following prompt to enter your registrar's information.  This is new on common app this year.  Unfortunately, we do not require the form.  So, in turn your registrar may not fill it out.  If they don't complete it, it will not affect your chances of admission.  The only thing we want to see from the Registrar's Office is your transcript.

The High School Transcript

For our last installment in this series, let's talk about the high school transcript.  The high school transcript (or GED score report) is required for every applicant, no matter how old you are and no matter how many college courses you've taken.  Even if you're planning on getting an associates, or maybe you already have one... the high school transcript is required.  Squash those rumors.  We have seen diligent applicants who graduated from high school 20, 30 years ago get their transcripts. It's more possible than you might think.

If you attended high school outside of the U.S., we require a translated transcript.  Most applicants use WES or the World Education Service, This can take time, so start working on it as soon as possible, be you a spring or fall applicant.

If you graduated high school recently, we are still closely looking at your high school record.  Typically, the longer you've been in college, the less we'll look at your high school record.

Order those transcripts now. Check it off of your mental to-do list early. You can send them even if you have yet to apply.  We'll gladly hold onto it until your application is submitted.

Foreign Language for UVA

When we meet transfer students, they are often surprised that we look for foreign language from the applicants who are interested in the "College" of Arts and Sciences, the McIntire School of "Comm"erce and the Curry BA/Master of Teaching program. This has always been a part of the degree programs and you will do yourself a great service by taking these courses before you come to UVA.  In fact, the Comm school expects you to have them before you get here. The GAA absolutely requires it.  But, the bottom line is that we look for it from all applicants to these schools.

You may take the courses through the 202 level and in some cases, you can take an AP or an SAT Subject exam to satisfy the requirement.  For a list of how to satisfy language through testing, go to: http://college.artsandsciences.virginia.edu/requirements/competency/#foreign

Standardized Testing

I am turning the page and looking towards the application cycles for spring and fall 2014.  My next couple of posts will address components of the application that students seem to miss or fail to address until it is deadline time.  First up, standardized testing.  We like standardized testing for our transfers.

We require standardized testing of most of our applicants.

-The SAT or ACT or TOEFL (for students whose first language is not english) is required for ANYONE applying under the GAA (no matter how old you are, no matter how many credits or associate degrees you have, and no matter how long you have been out of high school)

-The SAT or ACT or TOEFL is required for anyone who graduated from high school less than five years ago.  That's 2008-2012 for spring 2014 (2013 HS grades cannot apply for spring) applicants and 2009-2013 for fall 2014 applicants. Applicants are rejected simply because they are missing this required document.

-We accept the TOEFL or IELTS for students whose first language is not English.  We're looking for a 90 (100 for Commerce) or above on the TOEFL or 7.0 or above on the IELTS.


**Plan your testing schedule to fit in with application deadlines.  We'll accept the October SAT/TOEFL/IELTS test for spring 2014 and as late as the March date for the SAT/ACT/TOEFL/IELTS**

The Wait is Over

We have closed the waiting list.  You should receive an email this evening and this is our final decision.

We know that the wait can be exhausting, so we appreciate your patience and understanding. This will come as a disappointment for many of you, but on the wee little bright side, the wait is over. 

Thanks again for your interest and your attention to the blog.

The deadline for spring admission is less than three months away. Stay tuned.

Signing off for now...

The Next Wave

The next wave of offers will be released within the next 24 hours.  This will be about 40 applicants from the College, Engineering and the Batten School of Public Policy.  There are plenty of Virginians and out of staters in this batch, as there were in the first wave.  Keep in mind that more Virginians apply during the transfer process. This is the opposite for first-year admission.  More out-of-staters apply during that process. We are coming towards the end, but it's not over yet.  Again, I will announce it here if there are more offers or if the waitlist is closing for any school.  We hope to have this wrapped up by the end of the month or beginning of July.   

New News

Breaking news.  Our first major wave of Arts and Sciences and Engineering offers will go out tomorrow.  We have already offered to a tiny group from the architecture school and the commerce school, but these lists are not yet officially closed. We will also offer to some on the nursing waiting list tomorrow.  In all, somewhere around 75-80 decisions will be turned to offers.

These offers are announced through email, so check the email account you entered on your application. Check your junk mail too.  In order to keep this moving, you will have 48 hours to deposit.  Go back into your SIS self-service page and there you can pay your $400 deposit. 

Good luck!

Let's Talk about Bad Grades

*This is for students who have been admitted*

 Unfortunately, things happen and you might find yourself in a position where your grades dropped last semester.  It’s a tough thing to admit, but you will do yourself a favor if you tell us first (send your transcript at the same time) and not leave it for us to find when we see your transcript. Email us at undergradadmission@virginia.edu.  We may require or recommend that you visit our office to meet with us, repeat the course in the summer, or see a special advisor when you get here in the fall.  There are some extreme cases where we will rescind admission.  The point is, write us and let us know what happened and we’ll go from there.  Whatever action is taken is what we think is the best for you and your future success.

Hoping for Financial Aid? Keep Checking those To-Do Lists!

I noticed that Student Financial Services put out a request for additional materials on the to-do lists of many transfers.  They've been waiting for many documents since May 1 or 2.  Please go into your to-do lists and see if you are one of those people. Together, let's expedite this process of getting you your financial aid award. 

Follow-Up

I am so ecstatic because this is the first year we have not had rude or frankly, down-right ugly comments after the release of decisions.  The theme for your year must be civility.  You’ve asked some great follow-up questions.  I will either answer them here, or amend the blogposts from Friday. Some answers will go into the commentary.  Thank you for your calm and collected comments! It makes our job much easier. 

There are just over 500 applicants on the wait-list, but it is further divided by the schools to which you applied. Applicants on the wait-list are not ranked. We will not pick you off at random.  We will go in and review everyone who elects to stay on the wait list and sends final grades to us. The number of students we can take depends on the number of students who say yes to us.  But, we built in a little cushion, meaning, we do waitlist with the hopes of getting great spring grades from you.  Depending upon the year, we’ll take 60-80 students off the wait-list. We WILL take someone off the waitlist. 

We usually email (sometimes call) these student students with the decision and you’ll have 48 hours to say yes or no. This is more of a rolling process. We’ll announce it on the blog when we begin to make decisions and then we’ll email you once the waitlist has closed.

 
You may send a letter or email of continued interest or write to tell us of any new updates. You are welcome to send additional letters of recommendation, but you should only send them if they add new information.  No more than two please.

If you're going to make comments on this blog, please don't be anonymous.  It's hard to know who is who when more than ten of your are anonymous. 

UPDATE: The first batch of financial aid awards will be released on Thursday, May 2.  These can also be found online and only online.  Please check your to-do list to see if additional documents are needed  in order to complete your application.  As it stands now, they will release only on Thursdays.  I'll let you know if there is any more information. 

Waitlisted for Fall 2013?

You may use this post as an umbrella to make comments or ask questions about the wait list.

If you are interested in staying on the wait list, pretty please make sure you click the button to “remain on the wait list.”  If you don’t do this, we will not review you again in the future.

After the admissions deposit deadline of May 15, we’ll begin to look to see how many students we can take off the wait list. These numbers vary from year to year and unfortunately, it can be a long process.  We hope to make our decisions by the end of June.

Most importantly, we need to see your transcript listing your Spring 2013 grades in order to make a final decision.  Trust me.  You’ll want to do this, but only after exams and after all of your grades have been posted.  To do this, please use the same address that appears on the right panel of this blog.

If you are offered admission from the wait list and need to have financial aid information in order to make your decision, we will work to help you with this.  Good luck!

Not Offered Admission?

While it sounds trite, we wish we could admit all of the wonderful applicants who have applied.  You should be proud of what you've done and proud of the fact that you took a risk and completed that transfer application. If you post here, please be considerate of each other’s feelings, emotions, reactions and the like.  We do not have an appeals process, but depending upon the length of time you have been in college, you may be eligible to apply again in the future.  We thank you for your interest.

Offered Admission for Fall 2013

In order the streamline the comments, I will create separate posts for your individual inquiries.  Please be respectful of your fellow commenters and the work we have put into reading your applications.  I will delete any offensive or unpleasant commentary. 

**Feel free to ask questions here if you’ve been offered admission**

As I said before, your status page is pretty basic.  The admissions deposit which goes towards your  tuition for the first semester is $400.  Below your “letter,” you should see buttons for accepting or declining our offer of admission.  Clicking “YES” will not completely secure your spot in the class. You will need to pay in order to set it in stone.  You can pay with a credit card (we don’t accept VISA) or with an e-check. You’ll have until May 15^th to put down a deposit.  If you decide not to come to UVA, please decline our offer on that same page. This will make for a cleaner wait list phase. 

We do not have admitted students’ days for transfers, but you are welcome to visit before you have to make your decision.  I will address questions about orientation and housing next week.  I’ll also let you know when financial aid awards begin to go out. These are only posted online.

  
**Update:

In order to get the ball rolling, you need to make your deposit of course.  After 72 hours, you’ll be able to take UVA’s responsible computing quiz, set up your email account and register for orientation. I don’t believe housing and dining information will be available until mid-May or June, but ALWAYS keep an eye on your email. Your credits will not be evaluated until pay your deposit and send your final transcript.  Credit evaluation is ongoing until summer orientation.