The Lawn selection committee released decisions Friday and invited 48 students, out of 208 total applicants, to live on the Lawn for the 2025-2026 school year, according to University Spokesperson Bethanie Glover. The selection committee received 31 more applications than the previous year, which meant that the acceptance rate dropped from 26.6 to 23.1 percent.
Students applying to live on the Lawn must submit an application that includes an essay portion, description of extracurriculars and overall and major-specific GPA. Once chosen, students in Lawn rooms are expected to continue their involvement in their respective communities and establish a welcoming Lawn community.
According to Glover, all seven undergraduate colleges are represented in the pool of accepted students with 31 students from the College of Arts and Sciences, four from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, five from the McIntire School of Commerce, two from the School of Architecture, three from the School of Education and one from the School of Nursing.
The mean GPA of accepted students was 3.76. While more male students than female students applied, 104 and 103, respectively, 29 of the accepted students are female and 19 are male.
The Lawn has a total of 54 rooms, but only 48 students are selected via the acceptance process carried out by the selection committee. The remaining rooms “endowed” — reserved for students in certain clubs and organizations or students. Groups like the Honor Committee, certain fraternities which were founded at the University, the Jefferson Society and more hold these rooms.
60 fourth-year students representing all seven undergraduate schools serve on the selection committee that selects Lawn residents. The selection committee seeks to reflect the wide range of activities, backgrounds and interests that the University values as they choose students to live on the Lawn. Specifically, they look for students who have exemplified ideals of service to the University and Charlottesville communities and demonstrated exceptional achievement in their respective extracurricular and academic interests.
Student committee members include leaders across campus such as the Chair of Student Council and the Honor Committee, student union presidents and other leaders. The remaining committee member positions are selected through a random process.
Third-year Engineering student Cavan Meade was one of the 48 accepted Friday. Meade looks forward to having a space to offer for students to promote their causes and provide resources through posters on the door to his Lawn room.
“One of the great things about the Lawn door is that you can be constantly promoting music,” Meade said. “A big goal of mine is to always be promoting … new student bands and different opportunities to get involved in music around Grounds.”
Meade currently works to promote healthy relationships within Greek life as a sexual harm prevention coordinator for the Inter-Fraternity Council. He anticipates spreading awareness about this cause in his Lawn room, which will offer increased accessibility to students due to its central location.
“One of [my] goals is really to create a central space on Grounds where sexual health products and information and things like that are just available in a very open way,” Meade says. “You know, no questions asked.”
Meade is involved in various groups across Grounds, serving as president of the Virginia Gentlemen a cappella group, a violinist in Krispies band, co-founder of the Theme Park Engineering Group, the Inter-Fraternity Council’s sexual harm prevention coordinator and member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
Lawn residents not only spend the year promoting their causes in and outside the classroom, but they also have a front-row seat to University traditions like Lighting of the Lawn and Trick-or-Treating on the Lawn. Meade is looking forward to this perk of the room, as well as the more casual day-to-day events.
“I’m look[ing] forward to just sitting in a lawn chair and playing some music and throwing a football with friends,” Meade said.
The deadline to accept an offer from the selection committee is 5 p.m. Feb. 21. If a student does not accept their Lawn room, students who are on the waitlist are accepted into the spot.
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