Is NYU harder to get into than Virginia Tech?

Yes. In overall admissions terms, NYU is typically considered harder to get into than Virginia Tech. NYU draws a very large national and international applicant pool, has especially intense competition for some of its colleges and majors, and is usually viewed as a reach for many strong students. Virginia Tech is selective too, but for many applicants it is less difficult overall than NYU.

The student who should treat NYU as the tougher admit is someone applying to highly popular areas like business, arts, media, or certain urban-professional pathways where demand is extremely high. NYU also gets many applicants with strong grades, rigorous coursework, and polished extracurricular profiles, so standing out can be difficult even if your numbers look solid. In practice, that means a student who might feel reasonably competitive at Virginia Tech could still see NYU as a clear reach.

Virginia Tech can still be quite challenging for students aiming at engineering, computer science, or other capacity-limited programs. It is not a school to treat casually, and for out-of-state applicants the bar can feel higher than people expect. But the kind of applicant who likes a large public university, a more traditional campus setting, and strong STEM options will often find Virginia Tech sitting in a different admissions category from NYU rather than the same one.

For college list planning, many students would place NYU closer to the reach side and Virginia Tech somewhere between target and reach depending on residency, major, and academic profile. The biggest exception is when you are applying to one of Virginia Tech’s most competitive programs, where it may move closer to reach territory for you personally.