June 2006:

Admissions Yield Rises at Many Schools

A number of colleges and universities saw their admissions yields rise this year, resulting in minimal waitlist admissions and, in some cases, larger-than-usual freshman classes.

Harvard's yield rose to 80 per cent, the highest rate that school has seen in over 25 years. Stanford's yield rose by 2 percentage points, from 67 to 69. Princeton's yield toped 69 per cent.

Cornell's yield hit approximately 47 per cent, meaning that the University's Class of 2010 is over-enrolled by about 240 students. The University of Chicago is in a similar situation, having planned for an incoming class of 1,210 freshman but so far having received over 1,300 deposits. The University of New Hampshire is trying to head off an on-campus housing crisis after learning that about 300 more admits than it expected to had accepted their admissions offers.

Although schools are undoubtedly pleased that so many students want to enroll with them, they face serious housing and class size problems when yields are unexpectedly high. This spring's high admissions yields may lead some schools to be more parsimonious in sending out acceptance letters next spring.

Harvard Adds Minors, Plans Separate Engineering School

Harvard faculty recently voted to allow undergrads to add secondary fields to their degrees beginning this fall. Secondary fields, which are similar to minors offered by other schools, will require students to follow a four- to six-course program outlined by each department. The change is meant to give students more flexibility in designing their studies.

In other news, Harvard University unveiled a proposal to establish a separate school of engineering. Engineering is presently taught at Harvard through the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The plan, which will be voted on this fall, would allow Harvard to increase the size of its engineering faculty and expand its engineering programs.

May 2006:

Why Students Transfer from Brown

A handful of Brown students transfer out of the University each year, compared to roughly 200 who seek to transfer in, the Brown Daily Herald reports. Many of the undergrads who do leave Brown do so in order to attend a first-choice school that they did not gain admission to as freshman. Harvard and Stanford are the most common transfer destinations for those students. In other cases, students seem to be dissatisfied with Brown's social and academic environment. The Herald noted that a large number of students who transfer from Brown are athletes, but was unable to find any evidence of whether or not the quality of athletic programs was a factor in transfer decisions.

NCAA Takes a Second Look at High School Athletes

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has given the NCAA Clearinghouse more authority to examine the academic records of individual college applicants and of the secondary schools they attended. The move is a response to growing concern about the rapidly increasing number of 'diploma mills' that issue degrees to young athletes who were struggling at mainstream high schools. The NCAA says that it is willing to use lawyers and private investigators to look into the operations of suspected diploma mills, if necessary.

Colleges Unsure of Yields This Year

May 1 was the deadline that many colleges and universities set for '06 admits to confirm whether or not they plan to enroll this fall. Most schools routinely accept significantly more students than they could accommodate as freshmen, knowing that a certain percentage of admitted students will opt to attend other schools. Several colleges and universities were caught short last spring by unexpectedly high admissions 'yields' – meaning that more applicants than anticipated accepted their admissions offers. That in turn caused some colleges and universities to be more conservative this spring in the number of acceptance letters they sent out. It will be interesting to see what happens with yields and waitlists this month. We'll watch for news and update this website as we learn of developments.

April 2006:

Harvard's Acceptance Rate Climbs Slightly – Harvard University accepted 2,109 of its 22,753 '06 applicants, making for a 9.3 per cent acceptance rate, slightly higher than last year's 9.2 per cent. Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons told the Harvard Crimson that the school was able to admit 25 to 30 more students than last year partly because completion of a construction project opened up more freshman housing. In the future, Harvard hopes to maintain a class size of 1,675.

Yale Acceptances Set Record Low of 8.6% – Yale University extended admissions offers to 1,823 of its 21,099 applicants for 2006 admission, making for an 8.6 per cent acceptance rate that marks an all-time low for the Ivy League. The overall 8.6 per cent rate reflects a 17.7 per cent early admissions acceptance rate and a 5.8 per cent regular admissions rate. Approximately 700 students (about 3 per cent of the '06 applicant pool) were waitlisted.

Univ. of Pennsylvania Admits 17.7% of '06 Applicants – The University of Pennsylvania has extended admissions offers to 3,622 out of 20,479 '06 applicants, making for an overall acceptance rate of just under 17.7 per cent – more than 3 points lower than the rate in 2005. Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson told The Pennsylvanian that a decision to make greater use of the waitlist was one factor behind drop in acceptances. Penn's rising national profile and a record-high applicant pool are also cited as factors in the low admission rate. The 17.7 per cent rate reflects a 28 per cent  acceptance rate for early applicants and a 13.8 per cent rate for regular applicants.

Dartmouth's Acceptance Rate Drops to 15.4% – Dartmouth College's acceptance rate hit an all-time low this year, with just 2,150 of 13,937 applicants receiving admissions offers. Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg said that an exceptionally large and strong applicant pool made for an exceptionally competitive admissions season. 93.8 per cent of admitted students rank in the top 10 per cent of their high school classes, and 40.6 per cent were valedictorians.

Brown Sees Record High App Pool & Record Low Acceptance Rate – Brown University has sent acceptance letters to 2,525 of the 18,313 students who applied for its Class of 2010. Brown's 2005-2006 applicant pool was the largest one in the school's history, and the 13.8 per cent acceptance rate sets a record low for admissions. Dean of Admission Jim Miller did not give separate figures for early and regular acceptance rates, but told the Brown Daily Herald that early admissions were actually "a little conservative" this year because the University had expected a large and competitive pool of applicants in the regular admissions round.

Princeton Accepts 10.2% of '06 Applicants – Princeton announced on April 5 that it has accepted 1,792 of its 17,563 applicants for 2006 admissions. The overall acceptance rate of 10.2 per cent reflects a 26.8 per cent acceptance rate for early decision applicants and a 7.8 per cent rate for regular applicants.

Cornell Accepts 24.7% of '06 Applicants – Cornell  University extended admissions offers to 6,927 of the 28,097 students who applied for Fall '06 admission. The overall 24.7 per cent acceptance rate is higher than University officials estimated it would be last month, but is still lower than the 2005 rate of 26.1 per cent. Cornell accepted 38.7 per cent of early applicants and 23 per cent of regular applicants for the Class of 2010.

In other Ivy League admissions news, Columbia is reported to have accepted 1,653 applicants from a pool of 17,148, making for a 9.6 per cent acceptance rate.

March 2006:

Univ. of Pennsylvania Signs On to the Common App - The University of Pennsylvania has announced that it will start using the Common Application for freshman admissions to the Class of 2011. It will ask applicants to complete a supplemental, Penn-specific form -- undoubtedly posing classic Penn essay questions such as, "What would page 217 of your autobiography say?" -- as well. University officials hope the switch to the Common App will attract a more diverse applicant pool. Applications to Penn already hit a record high this year, with over 20,300 applicants vying for freshman seats in fall 2006. The adoption of the Common App may cause the figure for the 2006-2007 application season go even higher.

Brown and Columbia are now the only two Ivy League schools that do not use the Common Application. MIT, the University of Chicago, and Stanford are other selective schools that do not use the Common App.

Technical Problems Lead to Inaccurate SAT Reports - Approximately 4,000 of the almost half a million high school students who took the SAT Reasoning Test in October 2005 received inaccurate test scores due to errors in the scanning of answer sheets. The College Board notified admissions offices of the problem by letter earlier this week and provided corrected scores for students who received lower scores than they should have. According to the College Board, less than one per cent of test-takers were affected by the error, and in most cases the inaccurate scores were off by less than 100 points. An AP report, however, quotes college sources as saying some scores were off by as much as 130 points, and the New York Times reports a very small number of cases where scores were more than 200 points off. College admissions offices are re-assessing admissions and financial aid decisions in light of the corrected test scores.

Harvard's admissions office said that corrected scores had been received for about four dozen applicants. The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill had 71 affected applications; UC Berkeley, 32; and the University of Pennsylvania, 103, including 23 early applicants who had already received admissions decisions in December. Brown University's Dean of Admissions told the campus paper that his office reviewed about 80 files after receiving corrected SAT scores, but that most of the changes were "miniscule" and none was large enough to make a difference in an applicant's status.

The College Board says it will have contacted all of the students, high school counselors, and admissions offices affected by the error no later than Thursday, March 9.

Amherst Seeks Quality and Diversity - Amherst President Anthony Marx recently took issue with Business Week's portrayal of the school's plans to achieve greater economic and social diversity among its student body. Contrary to what the newsmagazine implied, Marx said, increasing diversity will not mean a "sacrifice" of Amherst's academic standards. The steps being considered to make an Amherst education more accessible to lower-income applicants include expanding its class size slightly (by 15 to 25 students) and increasing grants, need-based aid, and loan reduction programs. Amherst is widely regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the U.S. Last year it accepted 19 per cent of the almost 6,300 students who applied. 89 per cent of accepted applicants were in the top 10 per cent of their high school classes, and more than 50 per cent had SAT verbal scores of 750 or better and SAT math scores of 700 or better.

Common App Goes Completely Paperless This Fall - Completely paperless college applications are finally here -- for schools that use the Common Application, at least. The Common Application (the non-profit organization that provides the Common Application service) and the technology company Naviance have announced the successful completion of a year-long test run of software that allows high schools to submit transcripts, school profiles, and teacher recommendations to participating colleges and universities electronically. They plan to make the feature available for all participating colleges and universities in fall 2006. Everyone involved in college admissions will no doubt appreciate the added convenience that electronic submission brings to the process. Applicants should keep in mind, however, that this service will be limited to the approximately 275 colleges and universities that use the Common Application. Many fine schools accept the Common Application; many do not. Smart college applicants will not let the minor inconvenience of submitting paper copies of high school records keep them from pursuing admission to a college or university that seems right for them but that does not use the Common Application.

February 2006:

Women Dominate Yale Biomed Engineering Program - Yale's undergrad program in biomedical engineering is a striking exception to the rule that engineering programs are dominated by men. Women comprised over 75 per cent of the program's graduates in 2005, and made up about 75 per cent students in this year's freshman seminar. A student taking a double major in biomed and mechanical engineering told the Yale Daily News that the contrast in male/female ratios between the programs was "jarring." She consistently had more women than men classmates in the biomed program, but was the only woman junior doing a major in mechanical engineering. Students and faculty were at a loss to explain why the biomed program drew so many women, but pointed out that it is a growing and exciting field with many practical and career applications. The biomed program recently moved to a new building, the Malone Center, as part of Yale's ongoing investment in science and engineering programs.

Columbia's 2006 Application Volume Sets Record - Columbia University received 19,730 freshman applications for fall 2006. That figure is 9 per cent higher than last year and marks an all-time record for the University's applicant pool. Most of this growth came during in the regular application round, although the early decision pool also grew. Last year, Columbia's overall acceptance rate was 12.8 per cent. Admissions officials expect this year's figure to be lower both because the pool is larger and because more than a third of Columbia's fall 2006 freshman seats have already been offered to successful early decision applicants.

The University of Pennsylvania also received a record number of applications this year, with over 20,300 students applying during the regular admissions round. That number is about 8 per cent higher than last year. Admissions officials cautioned that they will be conservative in extending admission offers this year, to avoid a repeat of the campus housing crunch that resulted when an unexpectedly large number of 2005 admits accepted their offers.

By contrast, Harvard saw its applicant pool hold steady, declining from 22,796 applications last year to 22,719 this year. Nonetheless, Harvard's application volume still hovers around an all-time high, with the school having received record numbers of applications in 2003-2004 and in 2004-2005.

January 2006:

Unique Scholarship for Aspiring Writers - Do you have your sights set on writing your generation's The Catcher in the Rye? If so, you should take a look at Ursinus College and its new Salinger Scholarship. The award, named for former Ursinus student J.D. Salinger, will provide a student who demonstrates outstanding promise as a creative writer with a $25,000 scholarship – plus the right to live in Salinger's old dorm room for a year. Ursinus College, which is regarded as one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the United States, had Salinger as a student in fall 1938. (He left school partly because of money problems.)  His daughter said that he spoke fondly of his time there and especially liked the school's "lack of pretension." English professors Jon Volkmer and Matthew Kozusko designed the Salinger Scholarship to honor "the spirit of Holden Caulfield," said Volkmer. "We're looking to help out the quirky kid with unique vision."

Kiplinger's Names Best Values in U.S. Higher Ed - Kiplinger's magazine has named its 2006 best values in U.S. undergraduate education. The following schools won 'top ten' slots for both in-state and out-of-state tuition payers:

- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- The University of Florida
- The University of Virginia
- The College of William & Mary
- The University of Georgia
- The State University of New York at Binghampton

Additional Ivy League EA News - Yale University accepted just 724 of the 4,084 students who applied for the Class of 2010 under its single-choice early action program this fall. Yale President Richard Levin attributed the slight drop in Yale's EA acceptance rate (from 17.9 per cent last year to 17.7 per cent this year) to "a very strong early applicant pool" as well as a growing number of EA applicants.

Elsewhere, the University of Pennsylvania accepted 1,180 out of 4,148 early applicants, for an EA acceptance rate of 28.4 per cent. Dartmouth College accepted 398 of its 1,317 early applicants, filling about a third of its fall 2006 freshman class. Brown University reportedly offered admittance to 22.7 per cent of its EA pool.

Among other competitive schools, Stanford University accepted 853 students from a pool of 4,503 EA applicants, making for an 18.9 per cent EA acceptance rate. Tufts University, which began reducing EA acceptances last year in order to accommodate a growing regular applicant pool, accepted 313 students from a pool of 871 early applicants. Duke University accepted 467 out of 1,501 early applicants, filling approximately 28 per cent of the seats it has available for fall 2006.

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