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Applications expected to increase

The College is expecting a record number of applications for the Class of 2012.

Dean of Admissions Henry Broaddus estimated that 11,400 students have applied to the College, a 5 percent increase from last year’s 10,845. The College’s admissions deadline has passed, but the full number of applications is unknown because they have not all processed through the admissions office.

Broaddus expects more concrete numbers in the coming weeks.

If the preliminary number holds, it will be a record year for the College, and the largest growth in applications in three years.
The jump in applications follows a nationwide increase in college applications among America’s high school students. Broaddus also said that in-state applications have significantly increased since last year, while out-of-state applications are “running slightly behind.”

“This year is an unusual year,” Broaddus said, describing the climate surrounding college admissions, particularly in Virginia.
Broaddus said that the College may have been helped by the University of Virginia’s 2006 decision to end its early admissions program, effective for this year’s applicant pool. U.Va. — along with Harvard University and Princeton University — abolished its early admissions program, saying it unfairly advantaged wealthier applicants.

In eliminating the program, U.Va. may have sent more early admission students to the College, as students unsure of their chances at regular admission at U.Va. may have been drawn to the College’s early admission program.

The admissions department also released early decision statistics. A total of 917 students applied early to the College, an increase from last year’s 904. Of the early decision pool, 467 were admitted, an acceptance rate of about 51 percent. Last year’s early decision admit rate was 41 percent. The majority of

The majority of early decision acceptances — about 73 percent — were from Virginia. The majority of those accepted in the early decision pool — 299, or about 64 percent — were women.
About 16 percent of those admitted early decision were non-white, an increase of about 1 percent from last year’s pool. The middle 50th percentile SAT range for the Math and Verbal sections combined was 1270-1400, about the same as last year’s pool.

The increase in early decision acceptances may indicate a strategic shift in the College’s admission process, which experienced a rising overall admit rate in the past several years. Last year’s overall admit rate — after all applications and acceptances were tallied — was 34 percent.
p. Earl Granger, the College’s associate provost for enrollment, did not admit a new admissions strategy, but noted that accepting more early decision students may help bring down a school’s admit rate.

Granger said that accepting more early decision candidates “definitely plays into the overall admit rate. In some ways by doing that, it could help your overall admit rate. You end up putting fewer offers on the table.”

Granger noted, however, that the College has never tried to “make its class” from an early decision pool, unlike other universities, such as Harvard or Yale.