In recent years, UVA has received nearly 4,000 applications for transfer. They have only accepted around 33% of those applicants. However, this, compared against the first-year acceptance rate of 17%, has led to UVA having a reputation for being ‘easy’ to get into as a transfer.
We’d argue, though, that this is a little misleading. The UVA transfer acceptance rate, just like the first-year acceptance rate, isn’t 33% across all majors. They accept transfers to fill holes, so some majors may have an acceptance rate above 1/3, while others may have acceptance rates below the first-year rate. Unfortunately, we can’t know which majors provide advantages as it changes year to year.
Transfers, also, have less flexibility when it comes to switching majors, or even accessing certain majors in the first place, so you certainly can’t hope to apply expressing interest in one major with confidence that you’ll be able to switch options after you arrive on campus.
All transfers are expected to complete at least four semesters of full-time coursework to earn their UVA degree at one of seven schools:
The College of Arts and Sciences
The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
The School of Architecture
The School of Nursing
The School of Education and Human Development
The McIntire School of Commerce
The Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
To be eligible for transfer there are some minimums and maximums, while the some of the schools have their own particularities. You need to have a minimum of 24 semester hours of coursework (What are semester hours? Ask them how your credits measure up!), and be at least a year out of high school. As for maximums, you cannot have done more than three years of study at a four-year college or university to be eligible for transfer. Strong applicants also have a minimum of a B average, and meet the Transfer Course Requirements for the program they are interested in.
And, while they do accept students for spring as well as fall admission, the number of spring admits (only for the College of Arts and Sciences) is miniscule by comparison to the fall round. In this post, we’ll give you the crucial guidance you need to ace your application, along with some additional strategy that can boost your chances of admission.
A successful transfer requires more than a strong transcript. Learn More.
The University of Virginia transfer application has a series of four writing prompts, but they aren’t all required. Normally, we say that “optional” is only optional if you don’t really want to get in. Here, it’s a bit more nuanced. Let’s dig in.
THE UVA CONNECTION ESSAY
The first UVA essay is the connection essay. They don’t call it this, but we do. This prompt is super short — only 500 characters, or 3-6 sentences on average.
If you have a personal or historic connection with UVA, and if you’d like to share how your experience of this connection has prepared you to contribute to the University, please share your thoughts here. Such relationships might include, but are not limited to, being a child of someone who graduated from or works for UVA, a descendant of ancestors who labored at UVA, or a participant in UVA programs.
If you read that prompt and felt like it was completely disconnected from your experience, simply skip it. If you read that prompt and started digging to try to find someone or something to write about, that is another signal to skip over this prompt. Over-inflating a connection or trying to create something out of a few grains of sand doesn’t play well.
Hundreds of transfer applicants each year do, however, have a personal or historic connection with UVA, and highlighting it here is crucial. Before you start, remember two things: short and story. Rather than just stating facts, you need to tell a proper story laying out your connection in a way that carries emotional resonance.
Remember that while this prompt won’t get you in, it can give your application additional consideration. Make that work for you.
THE ENROLLMENT QUESTION
This is another prompt that is short, simple, and actually optional. Most things on an application aren’t optional, even if they say they are…or, at least, not if you want to get in. This, however, is. Like the prompt above, this one either applies to you or it doesn’t. If you haven’t left school since graduating from high school (and most transfer applicants haven’t), skip over this.
Please use the space below to provide details about any period of time when you were not enrolled in college courses since you graduated from high school. (up to 800 characters)
For this supplement, facts come first. Don’t aim to use all the characters. Instead, focus on laying out the facts without getting into any drama. Keep it simple. Again, this isn’t a narrative supplement, it’s an explanatory one.
The number one thing is: don’t make excuses.
Leaving school for a bit is fine, you just need to explain it.
THE TRANSFER ESSAYS
There are two core essays for the UVA transfer application. Each allows you to highlight a different piece of your background and experience, along with your aims at UVA and dreams for the future. As you work on these, drafting is key.
Please provide a statement that addresses your reasons for transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve. You can type directly into the box, or you can paste text from another source. (up to 4000 characters)
First, don’t type directly into the box. You need to draft this in a separate document, edit it there, finalize it there, and then put it into the application when it is completely ready to go. With that clear, let’s talk strategy.
When deciding what to share with UVA about your desire to transfer, you want to spend more time looking forward than backwards. Why you’re looking to leave your current school matters, deeply, but why you think UVA is the answer matters even more.
Ideally, UVA has an academic program that you’re particularly drawn to. If so, start this supplement with a story about you finding your passion for the academic subject you want to pursue. Maybe it was always there, but wasn’t as focused or refined yet. Or maybe you only discovered this passion after getting to college. Whatever the story, tell it. After setting this up, you’ll want to pinpoint why you cannot meet your academic goals at your current school. Be brief with this. Getting catty isn’t good, but it’s important to share why your academic dreams aren’t being met at your current school.
From there, jump into where your dreams can come true. Namely, UVA. Remember that you’re still focusing on academics here, but you can use academics as a way into talking about community, collaboration, mentorship, research internships, and more.
Now that you’re talking about UVA already, you can pull back from your academic arena and speak on what you’re hoping for at UVA more broadly. Again, don’t spend time bad-mouthing your current school or playing the comparison game, but do be clear about what you want at UVA and how the school will support you in reaching your dreams.
What about your individual background, perspective, or experience will serve as a source of strength for you or those around you at UVA? Feel free to write about any past experience or part of your background that has shaped your perspective and will be a source of strength, including but not limited to those related to your community, upbringing, educational environment, race, gender, or other aspects of your background that are important to you. (up to 1800 characters)
The previous supplement was all about you, but this one is all about community. They give you a good amount of space, so you need to have something strong to say. Your strongest story for this supplement isn’t necessarily the most dramatic or the loudest one. They open the door to writing about your upbringing, race, and gender, all of which can be great sources for stories, but remember that UVA cares less about what has happened to you in life than they do about what you bring to the table as informed by your experiences.
Pick one story that illustrates two or three facets of who you are, and tell that story as way of introducing the most nuanced and informed version of who you are outside of academics to the application readers. As you’re writing the story, don’t forget about the beginning of the prompt, though. They don’t just want to know you — they want to know who you will be at UVA and what you’ll bring to the (communal) table. Make sure to mention, with detail, at least two student groups that you would want to join and contribute to at UVA. Then circle back to the story you started with at the beginning of the prompt to wrap a bow on this supplement.
Writing the supplement is a key part of the UVA application, but it isn’t done yet. You’ll need to request recommendations from professors, order your transcripts from your current (or past) college and high school, and decide whether to send scores. And remember that if you are currently enrolled in a community college in the state of Virginia, you should also look into the Guaranteed Transfer Admission program.
If you are looking for your best transfer strategy, contact us. We help strong students transfer into exceptional schools.