The University extended Lawn room offers Thursday to 47 rising fourth-year students for the 2019-2020 school year. Seven out of the 54 total Lawn rooms are endowed or reserved for members of certain student organizations — including the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society and Kappa Sigma fraternity — and have not yet been filled.
After Lawn rooms were renovated in the late 1960s, a committee was formed to distribute the rooms on an application basis. Today, students selected to live in Lawn rooms “enjoy the distinction earned by their unselfish service and achievement in their respective fields of activity and academics,” according to the Office of the Dean of Students website.
A total of 236 students applied for a Lawn room this year — 133 identifying as female and 103 as male, of which 27 females were selected and 20 males were selected. The total number of applicants was a slight decrease from 282 applications in 2018. By school, 28 of successful lawn applicants are students in the College, five are in McIntire, four are in the Engineering School, four are in Batten, three are in the Nursing School, two in Curry and one is in the College and Curry School.
31 applicants who received offers identify as white, 11 as Asian, seven as African American, and three as Latinx. One selected student did not identify a race, and some students identified as multiple races.
According to Dean of Students Allen Groves, the mean GPA of the selected applicants is 3.76, and the mean GPA of all applicants is 3.57.
“It seemed to me that applications were not weighted in any particular way, that it wasn’t one quality or type of person they wanted to have,” said third-year College student Liam Zeya, who was offered a Lawn room Thursday. “Having an interesting academic path might’ve been important. Mine was kind of unusual, I went in wanting to do one thing and then switched to another.”
Fourth-year College student Joan Lee is the current Senior Lawn Resident and chair of the Lawn Selection Committee. Lee advised committee members to primarily consider the depth and impact of each applicant's work at the University or within the Charlottesville or Albemarle community.
“Because the committee members change every year, each member may value different forms of excellence than a previous year's member,” Lee said in an email statement to The Cavalier Daily. “However, there is never one singular focus for excellence and/or service, or type of applicant we are looking for when creating next year's Lawn.”
This year’s Lawn selection committee was comprised of 60 students. Thirty of the students are randomly selected fourth-years, and the other half are representatives from a variety of student organizations, Lee said.
This year, three representatives from the Asian Leaders Council, Jewish Leadership Council, and Muslim Students Association were added to the committee. Last year’s 54 persons committee thus expanded to 60, since three more randomly selected student seats were matched with the three new ex-officio spots.
Accepted applicants have until Feb. 22 to accept or decline Lawn rooms.
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