Boston College applications down 5 percent
Source | The Heights

Two weeks ago, the department of undergraduate admissions at Boston College began to mail out decision letters to hopeful high school seniors awaiting the word from colleges in what has been an uncertain year for both the applicants and admissions officials across the country.

BC experienced a 5 percent drop in undergraduate applications from last year, receiving a total of 29,300 applicants to the class of 2013. Even with that decrease taken into account, BC typically ranks in the top five private institutions in the country in terms of the volume of applications, according to John Mahoney, director of the office of undergraduate admissions.

“I don’t think college admissions is immune to the economic climate, but I’d be hesitant to attribute the decline in applications solely to the economy,” Mahoney said. “At BC’s level, the general roundup is that most schools are slightly up or slightly down, and we fall into the category of being slightly down.”

Of the other variables involved, Mahoney said that the decline can be partially attributed to a leveling off of high school graduates.

“After so many years of upward movement in terms of population of high school graduates, things are finally starting to level off,” Mahoney said. According to Mahoney, the number of high school graduates in the U.S. peaked last year at roughly 3.3 million students.

According to a New York Times report, universities across the country have not been able to rely on statistical models that are typically used to predict student behaviors regarding admissions. As a result of this, several universities, including BC, have been more aggressive in admissions this year. More…

Yale U. admits record-low 7.5 percent
Source | Yale Daily News

Yale College admitted a record-low 7.5 percent of applicants this year, a 0.8 percentage point drop from last year’s initial acceptance rate of 8.3 percent.

Yale accepted 1,951 students from its total regular and early applicant pool of exactly 26,000 applicants for the class of 2013, Dean of Admissions Jeff Brenzel told the News on Tuesday. The overall admit rate will rise slightly if Yale admits students from its waitlist, he added.

Compared to last year, a greater proportion of students were admitted in regular decision than were admitted in early action. On Tuesday, Yale admitted 1,209 of the 23,088 applicants in its regular decision pool, an initial regular admission rate of 5.4 percent. That pool included the 2,644 applicants deferred from the early action round.

Yale placed 27 percent fewer applicants on its waitlist this year compared to last; the number of students on the waitlist fell to 769 applicants, down from 1,052 for the class of 2012.

Last year, Yale’s final admit rate was 8.6 percent after students were admitted from the waitlist, Brenzel said. He added that he expects to accept students on the waitlist this year as well, but Brenzel said that he could not predict how many students on the waitlist ultimately would be accepted.

This year, the Admissions Office aims to matriculate a class of about 1,310, Brenzel said, down from 1,320 last year.

But the overall number of students admitted to Yale rose compared to the same time last year, when only 1,892 students had been offered a position in the class of 2012.

Yale admitted a greater number of students overall partly because a smaller proportion of the class was admitted early, Brenzel said. Past admissions statistics show that early applicants are more likely to enroll than those admitted during regular decision. While 80 percent of students admitted early last year chose to attend Yale, the overall yield — the rate at which accepted students matriculate — was 68.7 percent. More..

U. South Florida admitting fewer freshman applicants
Source | The Oracle

The University of South Florida will accept less than half of its freshman applicants for the next academic school year, partly because Admissions has increased its standards and a greater number of high school graduates have been applying to college in recent years.

The Tampa campus has received 27,000 freshman applications thus far, said Director of Undergraduate Admissions Robert Spatig. USF’s rolling admission deadline is April 15.

Spatig said that of those 27,000, roughly 10,600 students—almost 40 percent—were offered admission to the university.

“Our intent is to enroll somewhere around 4,200, which is the same as we did last year,” he said.

In the past few years, USF’s academic standards for admission have increased, Spatig said.

“I think a lot of people are surprised because they are getting into [Florida State University] or [the University of Central Florida], but they aren’t being admitted to USF,” he said. “We are looking for different things now, things that we specifically know attribute to student success at USF.”

Spatig said admission requirements are different this year than in the past.

“We look for a certain number of what we consider to be ‘academic success factors,’” he said. “These factors are based on students who have been the most successful at USF.” More…

Tuesday afternoon, a record-low 7 percent of Harvard College applicants will receive e-mails welcoming them into the incoming freshman class.

Out of the 29,112 students who applied this year, only 2,046 students will be offered admission, down from 7.9 percent last year.

“I say this every year so I lack credibility even with myself, but I think it’s the best class we’ve admitted, with the exception of the class of 1967,” said Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons ’67.

This year’s 6 percent increase in applicants has made admissions more competitive than ever, he said.

But, 98 more students will be offered spots today, compared to the 1,948 students offered spots a year ago.

“Last year there was so much uncertainty without early admissions and with the new financial aid policy, we were in totally uncharted waters,” said Fitzsimmons. “This year there are fewer variables … but we still wanted to be very conservative.”

Slightly more than half of the admitted class is male.

A record 10.9 percent of admitted students are Latino (up over 1 percent from last year), 10.8 percent are African American, 17.6 percent are Asian American and 1.3 percent of Native American.

According to the admissions office, geographic representation and students’ academic interests remained very similar to last year. More…

Brown admits 10.8 percent in its most selective year ever
Source | Brown Daily Herald

Months of nerves and anticipation will finally come to an end today for 22,645 regular decision applicants to the University, who can go online to view their decisions at 5 p.m. Eastern.

Dean of Admissions James Miller ‘73 said this year’s applicant pool was the largest ever, representing a 21 percent increase from the previous year - the greatest reported rise in applications among Ivy League schools this year.

“It’s a very, very talented applicant pool … the most talented applicant pool I’ve ever seen,” Miller said.

Of the total 24,988 applicants - including both early and regular decision - 2,708 will be admitted. Miller said the Office of Admissions sent out acceptance letters to 10.8 percent of applicants, while 13.3 percent were admitted last year.

There could be several explanations for the this year’s application surge, Miller said.

“One is that we have changed the way we recruit,” he said, adding that Brown now joins other institutions such as Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to give information sessions and lure prospective students.

“When we travel we get significant crowds of people,” he said.

The recent improvement in Brown’s financial aid program may also be a factor in making the school more accessible, Miller added.

The board of admissions met every day and night for months, even on weekends and holidays in order to reach decisions, Miller said.

“It was really quite an extraordinary commitment of time and effort,” he said. “We had to make some very hard choices, but it’s a nice position to be in.” More..

Dartmouth acceptance rate hits record low
Source | The Dartmouth

Dartmouth accepted a record low 12 percent of applicants for the Class of 2013, down from 13.5 percent last year, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris ‘84. The College received a record 18,130 applications, an increase of 10 percent over last year. Nearly half of the admitted students qualify for financial aid, a 14-percent increase as compared with aid requests for students admitted to the Class of 2012.

The Admissions Office posted regular decision application decisions online at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.

While all of the Ivy League schools received more applications this year, according to The New York Times, several small liberal arts colleges have seen applications drop. Williams College received 20 percent fewer applications this year as compared with last year, according to Jim Kolesar, Williams’ director of public affairs.

Ivy League schools’ strong and widely known financial aid programs may explain their continued success in attracting applicants, Laskaris said.

“I think it goes back to the strength of our financial aid programs and the awareness of our financial aid programs,” Laskaris said. “Concern about the amount of financial aid that smaller schools could provide versus the amount of financial aid that Dartmouth and its Ivy peers could provide may have been some of the reason for [decrease in admissions numbers at liberal arts colleges].”

Dartmouth’s new financial aid initiative, announced in January 2008, includes need-blind admissions for international student and eliminates tuition for students whose families earn less than $75,000 a year.

Dartmouth saw a 14-percent increase in the number of admitted students who qualify for financial aid this year, and the College will devote $72 million to financial aid next year, a 13-percent increase. Approximately 55 percent of the Class of 2013 will likely receive financial aid, Laskaris said.

The current economic crisis was likely a significant factor in increasing the number of admitted students eligible for financial aid, Laskaris said, adding that the admissions office has also worked to reach out to students from lower income backgrounds.

Despite the economic downturn, Dartmouth maintained its need-blind admissions policy for both American and international students, Laskaris said.

“It really speaks to the strength of the commitment to meeting the full need for all admitted students and really having a need-blind process,” Laskaris said. “Without need-blind admissions, it would be difficult to have as strong and diverse a community as we have.” More…

Tufts acceptance rate sees small drop
Source | Tufts Daily

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions reported a 4 percent drop in applications this year but accepted 26 percent of applicants to the Class of 2013 — down less than 1 percent from last year, the Daily learned Thursday, the date by which all applicants were notified of a decision.

The admissions office also stopped practicing a need-blind admissions policy toward the tail end of the process, a decision that affected five percent of applicants, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin said.

Admissions officers were able to first read every application in a need-blind manner, during which they did not consider an applicant’s ability to pay. But with more families requesting larger amounts of aid due to the recession, officers suspended need-blind practices for the final 850 applications — of 15,038 total — when potential financial aid ran out.

“We read every application need-blind, conducted committee need-blind, and then we ran the numbers and realized that we just couldn’t do it, that we had gone as deeply as we could go,” Coffin said. “It’s a disappointment to me as a dean, but when I think that we reviewed 95 percent of a pool need-blind, I can live with that.”

The overall four-percent drop in applications parallels a trend that many other private universities are witnessing nationwide as the economic climate redefines admissions models and strategies.

“From my own conversations with other deans of admission, most places saw slight to large decreases in their applicant pools that will recalibrate selectivity,” Coffin said. “It’s no secret that financial aid is a concern across the board.”

Fifty-five percent of accepted students qualified for financial aid this year, a 1 percent drop from last year. More applicants qualified for aid this year, Coffin said. More…

Princeton admission rate rises for Class of 2013
Source | The Daily Princetonian

Princeton has admitted 9.79 percent of the 21,964 applicants who sought admission to the Class of 2013. Only 2,150 members of the largest applicant pool in the university’s history were offered spots in the second admission cycle without Early Decision.

The acceptance rate is higher than it has been in each of the last two years. Last spring, the university admitted a record-low 9.25 percent of the 21,369 applicants who sought spots in the Class of 2012. In 2007, the university accepted 9.50 percent of those who applied to the Class of 2011.

This year, Harvard admitted 7 percent of its applicant pool, down from 7.1 percent last year. Yale’s admit rate fell to 7.5 percent from 8.3 percent, while Stanford’s fell sharply to 7.6 percent from 9.5 percent last year.

Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye attributed the higher acceptance rate to the university’s expansion of its undergraduate student body as well as the new bridge-year program available to members of the Class of 2013.

The target size for the incoming class is 1,300, which would make it larger than the Class of 2012, which has 1,245 members. The matriculation of this class will mark the final phase of a decade-long plan to increase the size of the undergraduate population to 5,200 by 2012. Rapelye noted that her office is expecting 20 of the accepted students to defer for a year to participate in the bridge-year program.

The university also placed 1,331 applicants on the waitlist, Rapelye said, explaining that “it sounds like a lot but it’s right for us.”

“I am delighted to be able to offer admission to more students,” Rapelye said. “It’s only good for us. They are so strong and so powerful.” More…

GW grad school applications up 16 percent
Source | The GW Hatchet

Graduate applications continue to rise, with George Washington University reporting an average increase of 16 percent over this time last year.

Kristin Williams, assistant vice president for Graduate and Special Enrollment Management, said the largest increases have come from domestic students from outside the D.C. area and international students, which posted increases of 25 and 17 percent respectively as compared to the same time last year. In contrast, the number of applications from students in D.C. area was down by 5.8 percent.

“Locally, there’s a lot of competition,” Williams said.

These numbers were reflected in the School of Business, which has seen a 30 percent increase in the number of full-time MBA applicants, and a decrease in the professional MBA program, which is part-time. Associate Dean for Graduate Program Murat Tarimcilar said the part-time program is aimed at the local market.

Unlike undergraduate admissions, graduate school admissions decisions and deadlines are spread throughout the year and made at the discretion of the individual departments and programs. The Hatchet reported in January that applications were up by 7 percent. More…