Spring Transfer Decisions are Out!

Decisions for the spring semester enrollment are out!

Check via your application portal or in the email you should receive for you decisions - if you were admitted, the reply form in the email will take you to directions on how to submit you deposit, if you wish to accept your offer of admission.

There is no wait list in our spring admission process. Please do keep in mind how much more limited in space the spring pool is - it is not even a tenth of the size of the fall semester enrollment. The acceptance rate for this spring pool was just under 16% - if you were not admitted, you may select via the reply form in your email to have your application roll over to the pool for fall admission. If you do select to have your application rolled over, do know that we'll want to see an updated transcript with your final grades in the courses you're currently in.

Please note: Those applicants who are entering their sixth semester at a four-year institution (that is, not a community college) are not eligible to roll over for the fall semester pool for the College of Arts and Sciences, as six semesters will put you over the limit on credits taken at a four-year institution. If this is the case for you, we hope that you apply to UVa for graduate school in future.

Unfortunately, we do not have admitted student days for transfers and, like you, our students and faculty will be heading into final exams in the coming days - if you have questions, give the Office of Admission a call and ask to speak to the Dean of the Day.

Best of luck to everyone as we head towards exam season!

Transfer Open House: November 2nd, 2018

We'll be hosting our annual transfer open house the first week of November!

Come join us for panels, tours and sessions of the specific schools, and a grounds tour on November 2nd. This is a great opportunity to hear from students who have previously transferred to UVa and from faculty in each of the seven undergraduate colleges.

Please register to attend here: https://apply.undergradadmission.virginia.edu/register/transferopenhouse

Hope to see you on Grounds in November!

Back to School!!

Fall semester is almost here! As you get started with finalizing you fall course selection make sure you're checking the list of pre-requisite courses and planning an appropriate selection.

Certainly, you may have courses at your institution that are required, but if possible, overlap your institutional requirements with courses that fulfill transfer recommendations.

If you go to our website admission.virginia.edu/transfer and click on "Transfer Course Requirements" on the left-hand side, you'll see some very helpful introductory information.  Once you click through to each school -- the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Architecture, etc -- you'll see a list of exactly what you need to take.  Follow this closely.  If you would like to see how your school's courses might transfer, you can use our transfer credit analyzer.  This will show most of your institutions and many courses.  Do not fret if courses you have taken do not appear on the analyzer.  It doesn't necessarily mean that they won't transfer, but our registrars will evaluate the credit once you're admitted.

Let us know if you have any questions about finalizing your schedules!

Thinking about your next move

August is almost here! As we mentioned in the last post, we want to now turn our eyes towards signing up for the appropriate classes this fall.

Many students find themselves fumbling around in the dark when it comes to course registration.  Remember that if your goal is to transfer to UVA, you'll need to find that "nite-lite" which will prepare you for work as a UVA student.  As you gear up to return to school (or maybe this is your first semester of college), it's important to be aware of the pre-requisite courses necessary for transfer to UVa. We realize there are courses you'll need to take at your institution, but it's important to overlap, or incorporate what we're looking for as well.

If you go to our website  and click on "Transfer Course Requirements" on the left-hand side, you'll see some very helpful introductory information.  Once you click through to each school -- the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering, etc -- you'll see a general list of exactly what you need to take.  Follow this closely.  If you would like to see how your school's courses might transfer, you can use our transfer credit analyzer.  This will show most of your institutions and many courses.  Do not fret if courses you have taken do not appear on the analyzer.  It doesn't necessarily mean that they won't transfer, but our registrars will evaluate the credit once you're admitted.

There is still plenty of time, but we look forward to answering your questions with regards to locking in your schedules. 

Final Wait List Update

We have filled the transfer class and won't be making any more offers for fall 2019.  This evening, an email will go out to all students who remain on the wait list in all schools.

It's hard to believe, but the deadline for spring 2019 admission to the "College" of Arts and Sciences, Urban Planning, and Architectural History is just three months away (October 1)!

If you are rising second year interested in the College, you are eligible to apply for spring admission. Keep in mind that spring is a competitive process, but students are admitted each year.

In a few weeks, we'll start the conversation again about signing up for the proper coursework to put you in the best position for a spring 2019 or a fall 2019 application.

We know the wait list closure is disappointing news for many of you, but we hope it will allow you to move on from this process and focus on next steps.

Transfer Wait List, Pt 2

As I said in one of my comments, this is a moving target.  We've been able to identify 15 more offers off the wait list.  There is one for Commerce and the rest are mostly Arts and Sciences, with some Engineering. Emails with these admit decisions will (crossing our fingers) go out tomorrow so long as the process runs properly overnight.

The wait list is still open and tends not to close until the end of June.  We will let you know when it closes and all wait-listed students will receive an email when this happens.

Comments Section

10:20am We are working to update our comments section.  We thank you for your patience while it is temporarily offline.

UPDATE - 11:20am: The comments section is available again.  It is newly reconnected to DISQUS, which we think is a better way for you to leave comments and for us to moderate them.

Transfer Wait List

As many of you have discovered, things are moving here in our office. We are working to offer to about 40 students from the wait list in Arts and Sciences and the Engineering School.  This includes the students who stumbled upon their decisions last night.

There is a process for this, and the emails are on a delay.  These should hit tomorrow afternoon.

We had an overwhelming response to our offers back on April 27th and that explains why we offered to fewer this year on the wait list. All wait lists are still open, and we are far from shutting anything down.  We will let you know here if we decide to make more offers. 

Please do not call our office looking for a decision.  We do not give out decisions over the phone or over email.  Once again, students who have been offered admission at this time should receive an email by tomorrow evening. As a reminder, we only send emails to the addresses you put on your application, so be sure to check there.

Are you on the Wait List?

You can use this post as a space to make comments or ask questions about the wait list.

If you are interested in staying on the wait list, please make sure you click the button labeled “remain on the wait list.”  If you don’t do this, we will not review your file again in the future. Once you’ve clicked it, that does the trick.  This page stays the same after you click the button in case you change your mind at a later date. If you do end up changing your mind and want to leave the waiting list, please come back and decline the spot. 

Admitted students have until May 15th to make their decisions. After this deadline passes, we will 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 won’t make any decisions on May 16^th.  There is a bit of a wait. Why? Because we have to wait for your final exams to end, and for you to send us updated grades. We hope to make our decisions by the end of June however. Offers are usually made in waves meaning we'll reach out one or two times. 

How do we make these decisions?  We absolutely need to see your transcripts listing your spring 2018 grades.  In short, send us your final transcript. Trust us. If you want us to look at your file again, send it along.  You’ll want to do this, but only after your exams are completed and ALL of your grades are posted.  To send this transcript, please use the same address that appears on the right panel of this blog. Ideally, you would want to get these to us by the first week of June, but there is still time after that period. We know there can be extenuating circumstances. If you were not taking classes this spring, feel free to send a note/email/letter of continued interest to undergradadmission@virginia.edu. It will get to the transfer committee, so you do not need to put it to anyone’s attention. Please do not send us additional essays or recommendations. 

If your grades are strong, this may help you earn the offer, but we can’t offer to everyone from the wait list, so we’ll be looking at the strongest candidates.  If you earned poor grades this past spring, it would be difficult for us to admit you.

Our wait lists are divided by school – Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Architecture, Nursing, Batten, Commerce, Kinesiology.  So, you are only on a wait list for that particular program.  It is not ranked, and it is only made up of students who elected to remain on the wait list.  That’s why we can’t give a firm number of right now.  Historically, about 20% of the applicants are offered a spot on the wait list, but not everyone elects to stay on it.

If you are eventually offered admission from the wait list and need financial aid information in order to make your decision, we will do our best to help you with this.  If you post here, please be considerate of each other’s feelings, emotions, reactions and the like. We will delete any inappropriate commentary. Good luck all!

Not Offered Admission?

This is obviously not the decision you were looking for when you set out on this journey.  We wish we could admit all of the great applicants who have applied.  The reality is that we only have so much space, making admission highly selective.  We want you to be proud of your accomplishments and proud of the fact that you stuck your neck out and applied to transfer from your world to a whole other world. Even that is an accomplishment. This decision is not a declaration of your personal worth or who you are.  We trust that you have other options and hope you can find peace in that next step.

                        

We do not have an appeals process, but depending upon the length of time you’ve been in college and your desired school here at UVA, you may be able to apply again in the future. You’ll need to complete a new application. For those of you who are in your first year of college, or in community college, with an interest in the College of Arts and Sciences, spring 2019 applications (available beginning on August 1) will be due October 1. If you post here, please be considerate and supportive of each other’s feelings, emotions, reactions and the like. We will delete any inappropriate commentary. We wish you the best of luck wherever this decision may lead you.

Offered Admission?

Please use this post to ask questions if you have been offered admission.

 

Congratulations! As I said in my previous post, you will receive a letter (in a thin-ish envelope) via the snail mail in the next week or so.  Take note that we never promise admission to a particular major.  You have been admitted to the school to which you have applied. Major declaration and planning will occur at orientation and over the summer, and sometimes into the fall semester for rising third years.  For rising second-years, you have plenty of time to declare

For those of you who applied to the Curry Teaching program, you’ll find out whether you’ve been admitted to the Master’s program in your letter. For those of you who applied to Architecture or McIntire, watch out for information on required summer courses (in your offer letter for Architecture and over email for McIntire).
 

Your $400 admissions deposit can be paid online.  This goes towards your first semester’s tuition. Below your online “letter,” you should see buttons to accept or decline our offer of admission.  Clicking “YES” will not completely secure your spot in the class.  You will need to pay your $400 deposit to set it in stone.  You can pay with a credit card (we do not accept VISA) or with an e-check.  As specified in the letter, you will have until May 15^th to put down a deposit.

Financial aid information will start to go out next week, if your financial aid has been reviewed.

You should keep a close eye on your to-do list in the event that Student Financial Services needs more information from you. 

We do not have open houses for admitted transfer students. You are welcome to visit and look around, but keep in mind that our students and faculty are headed towards or in the midst of final exams.

As far as the next steps go, 72 hours after you deposit, you should be able to take UVA’s responsible computing quiz, officially set up your email account and look into orientation. Housing and dining information will take a couple of weeks to come.   It is so important to keep an eye on both your old and new email addresses.  EVERYTHING happens on email.  Don’t miss important deadlines by ignoring these accounts. Hopefully, the email address you put on your application is the one you check most often. Your academic credit will not be evaluated until you pay your deposit and send in your final transcript. This evaluation is ongoing until summer orientation.   If you’re curious about what might transfer, check out our transfer credit analyzer.  Generally, you will not sign up for classes until orientation.  Specialty schools may reach out and tell you you can register at an earlier date, but this won't happen to until late Jane at the earliest.

If you decide not to come to UVA, please be sure to decline the offer using the other button-- the "NO" button. We and our wait listed students would really appreciate you taking the time to do this.

Lastly, keep up the good work and good grades.  We’ve admitted because you have shown us you can perform well in college-level coursework. You’ve come this far.  Let’s keep it up!   Feel free to come back to the blog for moral support during that final exams.

Fall Transfer Decisions!

We'll be releasing decisions sometime this evening! We don't control the time in the admissions office, but instead we leave it in the capable hands of our tech people.

Most of you will know how to get there, but let’s review how to view your official decision.  In order to see it, you must be able to get into your UVA SIS account.

If you don’t remember or can’t find your SIS login information, use the links on the login page to generate a new password.  If you need additional assistance, you can call the UVA help-desk at (434) 924-HELP or toll-free at (866) 469-4866.

Please do not overwhelm the system by opening multiple windows.  Take your time and use one window.  If you need to give it a rest, walk around campus, your house, or apartment one time and come back to it. Do some reading, dishes, laundry and let the system relax as well. Your decision will still be there 2 minutes, 20 minutes or 2 hours from that point. 

The decision pages online will give you limited information on your decision– Offer, Wait list, or Not Offered. We do not email decisions.  Detailed information for admitted students will arrive in the mail next week.  In an effort to be environmentally conscious, we only mail letters to admitted students.  In addition, please look out for important inserts in your envelopes if you applied to the Architecture school or Curry teaching program. Additional information for nursing admits will come in a separate letter. Students admitted to McIntire will receive very important information via email next week.  Many of these students will have additional requests for summer coursework or things-to-do in their letters. If this is you, often your spot is contingent upon your taking summer pre-requisites.

We’ll be creating spaces on this blog for you to comment, similar to what you’ve seen in past years. Look out for that later this evening.

Thank you for reading our posts and posting your questions throughout the whole year.  There is less to cover with you all because you are already college students, but we are happy to try and address any general topics you can think of regarding becoming a student at UVA.  We DO work most weekends during our reading season of October to April, but find now is the time to let the decisions settle in and we’ll address your thoughts and inquiries next week.  Good luck!

Financial Aid Deadline - April 1!

You'll recall from the right-hand sidebar of this blog that the financial aid deadline for transfers is quickly approaching.  To complete your financial aid application, we require submission of the FAFSA, the CSS Profile, and your tax return transcripts. For more information on this process (we don't handle aid in this office), please go to: http://sfs.virginia.edu/new/undergrad/transfer

Please Be Kind

Hi all,

You guys are so great and helpful on here, so we may be preaching to the choir.  That said, we are getting reports of callers being rude to our colleagues at the front desk regarding missing transcripts.  Our front-desk staff members have years of experience or are students working work-study jobs just like you. Please be kind as we do our best to cooperate with you.  All documents were due March 1 and we have extended a courtesy to many students who had difficulty getting transcripts to us on time.  We would appreciate respect and kindness from your direction as we all work to complete applications and make it through this process.

Thinking of Visiting?

We are just beginning to read applications for fall 2018.  Those of you who are applying know that we will release decisions around May 1.  If admitted, you will be expected to pay your deposit by May 15th. 

In years' past, we have heard from transfers who want to visit during this two-week window.  You are certainly welcome to do this, but like you, students and faculty will be in the midst of final exams.  Grounds (albeit warm) will look a little different and faculty won't be accessible. We would encourage you to you instead visit, next week(week of March 19) or in the second half of April. We, the admissions office will be hosting spring breaking high schoolers from all over the country, but we would be happy to see you as well.

Feel free to take a tour(skip the information session which is mostly for high school students) and sit in on a class. For information on this, check out our page here.

While this post encourages you to visit before decisions come out, please understand that we do not require prospective transfers to visit, we do not offer interviews, and coming to UVA will have no impact on your admissions decision.  That's called "demonstrated interest" and we do not practice this policy. This would merely be an informational visit for YOU and your college search process.

Applying to Architecture? Portfolios Are Required

If you are applying to the architecture program (not urban planning or architectural history), you'll notice in various places on our website that portfolios are required.  These are reviewed by architecture faculty and play a role in your admissions decision.

For specific instructions, you should go to our Deadline & Instructions page and scroll down to "ART AND ARCHITECTURE SUPPLEMENTS" tab at the bottom of the page (not the box in the middle of the page).  These are also due March 1, and happily, they are submitted online, so you don't have to worry about putting something in the mail.

These students are also required to attend UVA in the summer if admitted. Summer courses at UVA are condensed and super fun.

Come Visit Our Online Chat tonight!

Tonight (from 6:30-8:30 eastern), we're going to experiment with something we haven't done in years.  We'll be hosting an online chat for prospective students.  Two deans will be present along with a couple of students (former transfers) who will do their best to answer all of your questions about the admissions process and what it's like for a student at UVA. If you're on the mailing list, or you have an application in process, you probably received an email about this. If not, you should still be able to log in.

Starting at 6:30, you can go to this link to enter the room.  Of course, you can drop in anytime between then and 8:30. 

Many of you can use your myUVA account to register.  If you are asked for the chat code, it is 1481.

See you online!

Send Your Transcripts Now

Did you know that you can send transcripts before you apply?  Yes, it's true.

All too often, applicants do not mobilize quickly enough, or do not think about the need to send transcripts until March 1.  That's typically too late. Think about it this way.  If you wanted to mail a birthday card or an anniversary card to someone, you wouldn't wait until the day of the occasion to send the card, would you?  March 1 is the postmark deadline, but you can help us to complete your applications as efficiently as possible by planning ahead.  Request those transcripts now (this can take 7-14 days at some schools) and we'll match up your application to your transcripts after submission.

UPDATE: We will accept these via mail (see our address over there to the right -->)  or electronically (uvaapplicationinfo@virginia.edu or undergradadmission@virginia.edu) , so long as they come directly from your school.  Sometimes, these e-transcript services have email addresses pre-selected for them, but they should still end up here.

Good luck!

High School Transcripts (or the GED) are Required

We believe that many applicants are surprised that we require a high school transcript, or a GED score report from our transfers. This is an important part of application review and yes, it's required for everyone, no matter how old you are, or how long you have been in school.

This also goes for international students and students who finished high school abroad. This can present difficulties for these students.  Please make sure to consult with your school or school district to have these documents sent to us. If your transcript need translating, you will want to work on this as soon as possible. Most of our applicants use WES for their translation service.  We don't need the evaluation, only the translation. Some international schools do not provide transcripts, but rather summaries or test results from secondary education.  We will take those documents as well.

We tend to look closer at the high school records of rising second-years, because after all, that was less than a year ago.  While we require them for any applicant, typically the longer you have been away from high school, the less closely we'll look at that record.

Preparing for Spring Coursework

Are you applying for fall 2018 and looking to continue to take appropriate courses ahead of applying to transfer?  Be sure to keep an eye on our transfer course requirements.  As many of you are already aware, these are the building blocks to a competitive application and a smooth transition to UVA. 

To find out what courses transfer to UVA, be sure to check out this transfer equivalencies page.   With millions of courses out there, the College of Arts and Sciences has added as many courses as have been taken by our former transfer students. Just because your course isn't listed, it doesn't necessarily mean that the course won't transfer successfully.  We've also uploaded a document under our FAQs that should help prospective engineering transfers.

Taking the appropriate courses and earning strong grades are the most important aspects of file review. Now, back to those transfer course requirements. Once you click through to each school -- the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Architecture, etc. -- you'll see a list of exactly what you need to take.  Follow this closely, but it's highly recommended that you look to see what UVA students are taking their first two years as well.  It may be wise to take an additional math course if that's what Psychology or Biology is looking for. Some departments have done a great job of speaking directly to transfers on their pages.  Here are some examples - economics, psychology, and media studies. Some give curriculum guides like chemistry and mechanical engineering.  A quick google search will give you information on curricula all over the University.  Our best applicants have planned out their schedules using this information and it shows on transcripts.

Enjoy the rest of your break!