UVA admits 1,225 in binding early decision round

The first members of the Class of 2030 celebrated in mid-December as UVA extended binding offers of admission to 1,225 future ’Hoos. They’ll make up about one-quarter of new first-years this fall.

“We’re grateful to all the future first-year students whom we just admitted, and in fact to all the students who applied,” Vice Provost for Enrollment Stephen Farmer (Grad class of ’86) wrote in an email. “We look forward to welcoming our new students next August, and to working with the candidates whose applications we reluctantly declined if they want to try again next year.”

The early decision round is the first of three admissions rounds at UVA. Notifications for nonbinding early action applicants will arrive by Feb. 15 and regular decision by April 1. Early decision is the newest of the three options, introduced in 2019, when 2,159 students applied for the Class of 2024.

Since then, applications for this binding round have surged 136 percent, reaching 5,108 this year. However, after several years of mostly double-digit increases, growth in early decision applications slowed dramatically this year, rising just 2.7 percent year-over-year for the Class of 2030.

At the same time, prospective students faced longer odds of admission in this round than they have in the past. In-state applicants, in particular, have seen their acceptance rates drop from 40 percent for the Class of 2024 to 25 percent for the incoming Class of 2030. Out-of-state early decision applicants have experienced a similar trend, with offer rates slipping from 28 percent to 23 percent over the same period.

By comparison, across all admissions rounds, acceptance rates for last year’s Class of 2029 were 23 percent for in-state applicants and 12.5 percent for out-of-state.

As of mid-December, UVA had already surpassed the number of total applications it received last year: 70,133 compared with 64,457. It will continue to receive applications for the regular decision cycle until Jan. 5.