Forty-seven students were offered a Lawn room for the 2016-17 school year Wednesday.
This year, the Lawn Selection Committee used a different process than in years past — rather than having each committee member read each application, the committee was split in half, with each half reading half of the total applications and ranking their top choices from the pool. The top applications were then read by the entire committee.
The committee received a total of 291 applicants this year.
Current Lawn Senior Resident Vanessa Ehrenpreis served on the Selection Committee. She expressed overall satisfaction with the new selections process and said the task was much more manageable for the committee under the new system.
“I think this year was actually way more successful than anyone could have hoped for,” Ehrenpreis said. “I think that’s because the selections committee had a reasonable number of applications to read and was given time to give it a thorough look over... and really give each application the time it deserves.”
The new process also included a calibration committee, which was to be used in case the residents selected by the committee were not sufficiently representative of the University community. Ehrenpreis said University administration deemed there was no need to use the calibration committee this year.
“I think the calibration process needs to be clearer for next year, but since we didn’t have to use it this year, we didn’t have to cross that threshold,” Ehrenpreis said.
Dean of Students Allen Groves echoed Ehrenpreis’s sense of satisfaction with this year’s selection process. Although Groves was not involved with selecting next year’s Lawn residents, he was involved with the decision not to calibrate the results.
“From my vantage point, the process this year appeared to work well,” Groves said in an email statement. “It’s a very diverse Lawn by many measures and the selections committee completed its work ahead of schedule. We were able to release results on February 10, rather than February 17 as originally planned.”
Of the 47 selected applications, 25 are female and 22 are male.
Thirty-four white students, seven African-American students, seven Asian students, three Hispanic students and three unspecified students were chosen.
Approximately 66 percent of the selected students are in the College, and approximately an additional 15 percent of the selected students are Commerce students.
The mean GPA of the selected students is 3.796, with a mean major specific GPA of 3.829. The mean GPA of total applicants was 3.565.
While both Groves and Ehrenpreis praised the new selection process, Ehrenpreis said there is always room for improvement.
“Any selections process has its flaws, and this year is no exception,” Ehrenpreis said in an email statement. “We're always looking for candid input from all parts of the U.Va. student body.”
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