By Jonathan Schramm
Assistant Director
Undergraduate Admissions
In my last post, The Final Deadline for Applications Approacheth, I
discussed the application process – what is needed to have a completed
application at Virginia Tech. Now let's talk a little about how we review
applications once we receive them.
One word that comes to mind is holistic. Holistic Review means that we take all
aspects of a student's application into consideration: both their academic
qualities and personal qualities. You can rest assured that we review every
application, sometimes multiple times. Even though we receive upwards of
21,000 applications, we do not run them through a machine and say here's the
highest SAT, here's the highest GPA and that's our class. No, definitely not.
Additionally, we evaluate students within the context of their high schools,
meaning we do not rank high schools – no matter what US News and World
Report would have us do – across the board. We discern course offerings,
grading scales, weighting scales and the like, to gain the clearest picture
of how a student has performed within their respective academic environments.
There's a lot more that goes into the review process, which I will share
with you over the next month or so. Each topic – 1) Curriculum 2) Grades 3)
Standardized Test Scores 4) Personal Qualities – merits its own blog entry.
So check back in a few weeks to learn more.
And remember, the deadline for applications is a only days away!
