Kicking off a week of college visits, I enjoyed seeing the University of Virginia in Charlottesville again, even in the rain! UVA is a beautiful campus in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, about an hour from Richmond and 2 hours from Washington DC. There's a major airport in Richmond with direct flights to a lot of US cities, and also an Amtrak station 20 minutes from campus, with buses going there daily.

Students apply into 1 of 5 colleges: Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Applied Science, Architecture, Nursing, and Education and Human Development. It's important to note that while it might be possible to switch from one college to another after matriculation, it is often difficult to do so. Two other things worth noting about majors: nursing is direct admit, which is quite unusual among southern public institutions, and architecture does not require a portfolio.

First year students are required to live on campus and most students move off-campus after the second year, but housing is available for upperclassmen. Large classes were mentioned several times on my tour and they can be as large as 400 students. I ate lunch in the dining hall and the food left something to be desired. This is all to say that the University of Virginia is very prestigious and an excellent academic institution, but it is a large flagship public university with all that comes with that, regardless of rankings. That said, UVA ranks in the top 5 for public institutions, or best value in public institutions by many 3rd party sources including Princeton Review, Niche, USNWR and Money Magazine.

I really appreciated the transparency from admissions when they said that they look for all 5 subject areas for all 4 years of high school in the most challenging courses available. This is something we frequently counsel our students on if they are applying to highly selective colleges, but it's really great to hear it directly from the horse's mouth.They also said they like to see as many AP's as possible. With only 1/3 of each incoming class allotted for out-of-state students, this is great advice if a student wants to be a competitive applicant.