Were 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 an offer letter (in a thin-ish envelope) in the snail mail.  We never promise admission to a particular major.  You have been admitted to the school to which you’ve applied. Major declaration and planning will occur at orientation and over the summer. 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).

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 an 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 in the midst of final exams.

As far as the next steps go, 72 hours after you deposit, you should be able to take U.Va.’s responsible computing quiz, officially set up your email account and register for 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. 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. 

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.  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 last final exam or paper.

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 wonderful 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 UVa school, you may be able to apply again in the future. You’ll need to complete a new application. Spring 2017 applications (available beginning on August 1) will be due October 1. Again, this might not be open to your school of interest.  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 take you.

Have you been placed on the waiting 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 waiting 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. So, if you change your mind and want to leave the waiting list, please come back and decline the spot.

After the admissions deposit deadline of May 15, we’ll begin to look to see how many students we can take off the waiting 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.

How do we make these decisions?  We absolutely need to see your transcripts listing your spring 2016 grades.  In short, send us your final transcript. Trust me. 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.  You’d be surprised how many people send us blank transcripts. 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.

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.

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

If you are offered admission from the waiting 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!

It's Almost May 1, but...

Decisions will be released this evening! Please make sure you read this entire post.  You wanted an update, so please read it. While we've been commenting on our last post, it might have been a little quiet on our end. That's only because we were happily charged with reading 2,400 transfer applications immediately after reading 32,000+ first year applications plus greeting all of our great March/April visitors. We are so excited to complete our transfer process. One year, there was a hitch and we had to release on May 2, so announcing this any sooner would have been risky.  We are just about ready, so you should be able to see decisions sometime after 5PM today.

DO NOT CALL THE OFFICE TO ASK FOR YOUR DECISION. OUR REPRESENTATIVES DO NOT GIVE OUT DECISIONS OVER THE PHONE OR OVER EMAIL.

Let’s review how you can see your official decision.  In order to view 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 https://sisuva.admin.virginia.edu/psp/epprd/EMPLOYEE/EMPL/h/?tab=PAPP_GUEST 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 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 be there 2 minutes, 20 minutes or 2 hours from that point. 

The decision pages online will give you limited information – Offer, Waitlist, or Not Offered. Once again, 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 letters if you applied to McIntire, Architecture or the Curry Teaching Program.  Many of these students will have additional requests or things-to-do in their letters.

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 afternoon.

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 it’s best to let the decisions settle in and we’ll address your thoughts and inquiries next week.  

APRIL 1 Financial Aid Deadline!

Need-based financial aid (which is an option for Permanent Residents and U.S. Citizens) is just as available for transfers as it is for first-year applicants. 

This serves as your reminder for the April 1 deadline.  Student Financial Services (SFS) is very strict about this deadline. They require TWO forms in order to properly apply for aid.  Please don't fill out the FAFSA and assume you have completed the task.  We also require something called the CSS Profile.  So again, we require both the FASFA and the CSS Profile.  If you don't comply by this deadline, you may miss out on some great state and UVa aid.  For more information, please check out the SFS website at http://sfs.virginia.edu/new/undergrad/transfer.  If you have questions about aid, please contact Student Financial Services. We are a need-blind institution and thus we do not handle financial aid inquiries here in the admissions office.

Deadline Time

Deadline day is upon us.  You guys are lucky with the leap year.  You have that extra day to work on the application.  We hope you'll use it wisely.  We hope many of you are putting the finishing touches on your applications this weekend.  How terrible would it be if your internet went out, or your computer crashed, or you became sick and you couldn't apply the evening of March 1.  Don't delay.  Let's leave Super Tuesday to politics and not to applicant meltdowns. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you submit.

-Read the application instructions. There's a whole section specific to transfers about "Accessing the Student Information System" and so many of the questions we get on the phone or over email are answered here (or on the sidebar to the right). 


-A few days after your file is pulled into our system, UVA's Student Information System will send an email with login information to the email account you used on your Common App. On the main screen, you'll see a "to do" list of items that need to be checked into your file. The first time you log in, you might see items that are in our system, but just haven't been matched up to your file yet. Please be patient. It takes a few weeks for our staff to match all those transcripts to newly submitted applications.

-You don't have to "rush" your standardized test scores. As long as you have submitted your request for the ACT, SAT, TOEFL or IELTS, we can work with you. In an ideal world, you'd have submitted those requests earlier in the month, but we'll have plenty of things to work on if the scores aren't here on deadline day.

-This is probably what's most important.  Paying the fee doesn't submit your application. Every year, there are people who submit a payment, but don't submit their actual application.  Please watch out for this. Please be thorough.




Good luck!

Your journey as a transfer applicant

We are full of application tips these days.

Oftentimes we come to an application and the student has not take a traditional route --matriculating to college a few months after high school graduation.  We have a number of students who have taken time off, or attended two or more colleges, stopped school to raise a family, to earn money, to serve in the military.  This is time away from school and we would love to have you fill in the blanks for us.

If this is your situation, please make sure you address any interruptions or delays in your college education in your essays.  If you don't, you'll leave us to guess and make assumptions and unfortunately, we tend to believe the situation is worse than it actually is.  So, tell us all you can about your personal journey and that will help us make an informed decision.

Less than a month until the March 1 deadline!

Listing Test Scores on the Common App

We noticed last year that many transfer applicants chose to skip the TESTING section on the Common App (see below).  After all, it asks "do you wish?" The standard common app verbiage isn't very encouraging, but we would encourage you to use the space.  It's true that a small sliver of you, because you've been out of high school for five years, may not have SAT or ACT scores. But skipping this section does create a problem if you want us to consider strong AP scores that you may have earned a some point in your past. You can get credit for these! We remember one case in particular where it was the difference between a deny and an offer. Maybe you took International Baccalaureate HL exams.  You should list these scores. If you are admitted, we'll then ask you to send the official scores in order to get official credit. If you would like to see what sort of credit an AP or IB score might give you, click here. If you've already submitted your application, and you left this part out, you can send us an update to uvaapplicationinfo@virginia.edu

Come join us for the Spring Semester Transfer Open House!

While it certainly does not feel like spring out there, for most of us, it's the spring semester.
We are hosting our transfer open house and we'd like you to join us.

We'll be hosting it here on grounds on Friday, February 5th from 10am-2pm.

Please go here to register.

The day will include a general admissions talk, a student panel Q&A, a tour of grounds and session with a faculty member from your school of interest (commerce, engineering, nursing, arts and sciences etc.). 

Stay warm!

Finalizing your Spring Courses?

Many of you started classes last week, or you're getting into it this week. As you are putting the final touches on your course schedule for spring, keep an eye on the pre-requisite courses we've listed on our website.  Remember that if you're applying to the College of Arts and Sciences, the math, science and foreign language pre-requisites are extensive.  If you haven't taken any of these courses, we suggest you sign up and start taking off a bite off of them this spring.

To find these pre-requisites, go to this site and click on your school of interest:
http://admission.virginia.edu/transfer/requirements

Happy first week of classes!

Gathering application materials while home for the holidays

Hopefully, final exams are over for you and you can rest easy. If you are applying for fall 2016, you'll remember that one of the required documents is your high school transcript.

Just a quick tip: while you are home over the break, or taking some downtime away from home, take the time to contact your high school when it's back in session in January.  You can order your high school transcript and have it sent to our office even before you've applied. This will give you a nice start in submitting your entire application.

Have a great holiday everyone!

Are you a student at Reynolds Community College?

Did you miss the college fairs in the Richmond area last month? Want to learn more about UVa? Well, come out to the Transfer Information Night sponsored by the Parham Road campus of Reynolds Community College. Last year, our rep had a good showing of high school students and this year, we'd like to see more transfers.

For more information, go here:
http://www.reynolds.edu/who_we_are/media_center/documents/Transfer_Night_flyer_2015.pdf

We'll see you out there!

Spring 2016 Transfer Decisions

All transfer decisions were posted online last night.  Remember that you have to check your SIS account to get your decision. You'll find 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, check your submission confirmation email, then 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 2016 consideration.  Please follow the directions in your online letter.  NOTE: 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. 

Best of luck to everyone!

Visiting the University

We just wanted to put a little reminder out there that you can visit Grounds at any time.  We have information sessions and tours almost daily and we'll have our fall transfer open house on Friday, November 6th.  This event will allow you to hear from current students(former transfers) and faculty about what it's like to be a UVa student. This is particularly important for those of you who applied for spring admission.  If you are admitted on December 1, you have two weeks to make your decision. We do not have transfer admission admitted students days and as you can imagine professors and students are very busy during that time preparing for final exams.  It's best if you visit in November, if you need that visit to make your decision. Note that visiting will not play a role in your admissions decision.  Some of you live very far away and that wouldn't be fair to those who couldn't get here.  It is merely an option if you've been thinking about coming to take a look.

Review of Applications for the Spring semester

Eligible Schools for Spring Admission
Remember that in the spring, we only take a limited number of students to a limited number of schools.  We only admit for the College of Arts and Sciences, Architectural History and Urban and Environmental Planning.  If you plan to study other fields like nursing or engineering, etc, please hold off and apply for fall 2016 admission. http://www.admission.virginia.edu/transfer/admissions

The GAA does not work for the spring admission
The Guaranteed Admission Agreement is only available for fall applicants, and only applies to VCCS applicants wanting to study in the College of Arts and Sciences, Engineering and the RN-BSN program. But again, this is not available for spring transfer.  No need to click the button now.

Good luck with those last-minute applications!

Let's recap the Common App Forms

Hopefully, we're getting new viewers to the blog.  I want to draw your attention to the information on the right side of the blog.  This is information pertaining to the most common questions we receive.  We fear that not everyone reads it and felt it would be a good time to talk about the Common App forms.  Some of your other transfer institutions will require these.  We do not. Unfortunately, because the Common App is common, we cannot take these down from your application. Here are the guidelines:

1) The College Report is NOT REQUIRED
2) The Secondary School Final Report is NOT REQUIRED


That said, ALL college and ALL high school transcripts are required.
3) The Mid-Term Report is RECOMMENDED. If you decide to send it, send it after mid-terms which will likely be after the deadline, and that's just fine.
4) The Academic Evaluator Recommendation is RECOMMENDED.

Good luck!

Just a couple more weeks

As you can tell, our spring application deadline is just around the corner. Many of you have already done so, but if not, you should start gathering your required materials (transcripts, test scores) and your optional materials (recommendations) now.   It can take weeks to get your transcripts, so the sooner you get them, the better.  Remember to list ALL of your previous institutions and all of your current courses.

Seeing that you all are the first students applying this cycle, what questions do you have from the common app? It can be a little confusing and checking in here can help many others like you.