The rooms along the Lawn comprise the oldest and — as many may believe — most prestigious residences on Grounds. Every year, hundreds of third-year undergraduate students apply to live in the rooms that stretch out from either side of the Rotunda. Only a few, however, receive the honor. Fourty-seven Lawn residents were chosen for the 2009-2010 academic year, with the hope of continuing the tradition and community that are said to make the Lawn such a unique living experience. The remaining rooms mostly will be filled by representatives from some of the school’s most recognizable student groups, making the Lawn a highly selective community within an already highly selective University community.
The Selection Process
Students who wish to live on the Lawn must go through a process that differs from the process used for other on-Grounds housing options. Aspiring Lawn residents must fill out an application, which includes essays and allows students to share both their academic and intellectual achievements as well as their involvement both inside and outside the University community. Fellow students and current Lawn residents review and make the final selections about next year’s Lawn residents.
“It’s selected by one’s peers, which to me is a high honor, and it carries with it obligations,” Dean of Students Allen Groves said.
Groves said the process begins with the Lawn Selection Process Organizing Committee, which puts together the Selection Committee — the committee responsible for reading all applications and choosing next year’s Lawn residents. The Organizing Committee creates a timeline for the selection process. It also has the ability to make any changes involved with the application and formulate the selection criteria. The Organizing Committee’s membership consists of a group of students along with Groves, African-American Affairs Dean Maurice Apprey and Director of Accommodations John Evans.
Fourth-year College student Merriam Mikhail, who served on the Organizing Committee and the Selection Committee, said the Selection Committee comprises 15 fourth-year students — who apply to be on the Selection Committee and are chosen by a lottery — and 21 ex-officio members. The Selection Committee’s ex-officio membership, Mikhail said, includes representatives from each undergraduate school, representatives from 17 contracted independent organizations on Grounds and the current Head Resident of the Lawn, who is a non-voting member.
When reading applications, Mikhail said, those on the Selection Committee look at two major criteria: “intellectual achievement” and extracurricular involvement.
“I adhered closely to those criteria and I took the time to look at the application in its entirety,” Mikhail said, noting that she looked for well-rounded students.
Bringing diversity to the Lawn, along with “well-rounded, experienced growth through achievements” were the elements that Mikhail said make an impressive Lawn résumé.
Each member on the Selection Committee must select 65 candidates who they think deserve to be on the Lawn, Mikhail said, adding that the rest of the applications that the committee reads are labeled either with a “maybe” or a “no.” The applicants who receive the most selections become next year’s residents, Mikhail said.
The Lawn also includes rooms whose residents are chosen through a different process. The John K. Crispell memorial room, which is reserved for a pre-medical student, the Gus Bladgen room, the room for the Honor Chair and the room for the head resident operate differently from the rest of the Lawn rooms, and separate groups choose these rooms’ future residents, Groves said.
Additionally, The Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, The Trigon Engineering Society, the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity and the Kappa Sigma Fraternity have rooms reserved on the Lawn, Groves said. Unlike the Gus Blagden room and similar rooms, however, these organizations may only choose to fill their respective rooms with a resident that has already been chosen through the normal selection process, Groves said. He added that, if a member of one these organizations is not selected to live on the Lawn, then the room operates normally for that year. In addition, Groves said an organization can appeal to him if nobody from that organization was selected to live on the Lawn.
Changes
While this selection process has been used for quite some time, several changes were made this year to how the two committees and the online Lawn application operated.
The application underwent significant changes this year, sources said. Mikhail said the Organizing Committee broadened the acceptable criteria for the applicants’ extracurricular involvement by allowing students to include activities and achievements not related to the University. In addition, the committee removed the requirement to list the number of applicants’ activities because the “planning committee believed the number of acts does not always define specific involvement,” she said.
The Organizing Committee also decided to move the question that asks for an applicant’s GPA to the very bottom of the application so that readers would not be as influenced by this criterion when reviewing the rest of the application, Mikhail said.
“I think it’s important that GPA wasn’t first on [the application] because that’s not a fair assessment,” Mikhail said.
She also noted that two members were added to the selection committee: representatives from the National Pan-Hellenic Council and the Multicultural Greek Council.
“Being on the Committee is a big commitment,” Mikhail said. “We spent 25 hours reading applications and digesting them. We really put everything else aside, even with the organizations that we represent.”
By the numbers
Evans recently provided The Cavalier Daily with statistics about the students who applied to live on the Lawn and those who were ultimately selected to live there.
According to these statistics, 251 third-year undergraduate students applied to live on the Lawn. That means there was a resident acceptance rate of about 18.7 percent for the 2009-10 year.
Applicants this year participated in a variety of different organizations during their time at the University, including academic groups, honor societies, clubs, Greek organizations and athletic teams. About 250 groups total were represented on applications.
Madison House was listed on the most applications, with 38 students claiming affiliation with the volunteer organization. Thirty of the applicants listed participation in Alternative Spring Break and 21 of the applicants were residential advisors.
Next year’s selected residents, however, represent only about 80 groups of the about 250 groups. Of these, students who had participated in Alternative Spring Break made up the largest number of residents with 12, followed by 10 Echols Scholars and nine Student Council members.
The Lawn’s applicants and residents reported a number of different academic backgrounds. Students from each undergraduate school applied to live on the Lawn.
College students represented the majority of the applicant pool with approximately 65.74 percent applicants. The second most-represented school among applicants was the Engineering school, making up 17.53 percent of the applications.
An even larger majority of the students chosen to live on the Lawn were from the College, though, limiting the number of spots open to non-College students. Thirty-seven, or about 78.72 percent, of next year’s Lawn residents are in the College. Only six future residents are from the Engineering school, while the Nursing school, the Commerce school, the Architecture school and the Education school were each represented by one student accepted to live on the Lawn next year.
Fourth-year College student Lindsey Turner, who served on the Selection Committee, said the number of College students who will live on the Lawn next year was related to the overwhelming number of College students who apply to live on the Lawn, and does not reflect a significant pro-College bias.
“I think if you look at the proportionality at it, the College is the biggest school, so if you looked at [the applicant pool] more proportionally [in relation to the University student body], it’s more even,” Turner said.
According to the University’s Web site, about 73 percent of the University’s students are enrolled in the College, which is only slightly less than the proportion of students from the College living on the Lawn next year.
The applicants included students majoring in 57 disciplines. Commerce was the most common major — with 28 applicants — and was followed by economics with 17 applicants and history with 13.
Of those selected to live on the Lawn, 22 majors were represented. Of these students, political and social thought was the most common major with eight students, followed closely behind with English and economics, which each have four residents. The mean GPA of the applicants was 3.459, while the mean GPA of the newly selected residents was significantly higher at 3.709.
More than just statistics
The Selection Committee members sought to select residents who could create a diverse environment on the Lawn, Turner said.
“I was trying to be very aware of diversity ... trying to build a diverse Lawn community and have a variety of groups from around Grounds represented,” Turner said about how she went about selecting potential residents.
Fourth-year Engineering student Thaddeus Darden, a current Lawn resident, said he appreciates the Lawn’s diversity, emphasizing that it is a core value residents share and learn from.
“People interact that may have otherwise never met or spoken at U.Va.,” Darden said about the Lawn experience.
Third-year College student John Nelson, Student Council president-elect and one of next year’s Lawn Residents, said he looks forward to living in a diverse environment on the Lawn.
“It will be great to meet other people who share a similar passion but come from different backgrounds, and [it will be a] great learning experience,” Nelson said. “I definitely want to use the room to reach out to students, especially underclassmen.”
In addition to diversity, the Selection Committee strives to create a community on the Lawn whose members engage with one another and with the larger University community, Groves said.
“There was a joke that referred to one retiring to the Lawn,” Groves said, noting that the joke was about “someone who has achieved a lot but just kicks back and hangs out in their room.” Groves noted that, to combat this, the committee looks “for people who are extremely active and welcoming to the community.”
Third-year Commerce student Manuj Jindal, who was selected as a Lawn resident next year, said he will have the opportunity to better engage with students around Grounds next year as a result of his application’s acceptance.
“It kind of helps me achieve two goals: reach out to students’ leaders and fulfill my U.Va. experience,” Jindal said.
Editor’s Note: Several Cavalier Daily readers, including future Lawn residents, pointed out a number of alleged discrepancies about statistics that ran alongside this article in our print edition (2009 — 2010 Lawn Application Statistics, 3/16/2009). As noted in the article, these statistics were provided by John Evans, director of accommodations for University Housing, and were left unedited because of the applicant-reported nature of the data. The Cavalier Daily regrets any perceived errors on its part and any misinformation conveyed via the statistics. No attempts were made to purposefully disservice or not represent certain groups; rather, The Cavalier Daily printed the statistics as provided to it and as collected by University Housing officials who handled this year’s Lawn applications.
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