The University saw 13,879 early action applications this year, up from 11,681 last year. Dean of Admissions Greg Roberts attributed the rise to increased knowledge about the early action program.
“Since last year was only our first year I assume that more students were familiar with it this year,” Roberts said.
The jump in applications has added to the Office of Admission’s workload. “We hired more people,” Roberts said. The office has 15 part-time application readers and added a few more full-time readers to ensure each application is read thoroughly.
International students are applying in increasing numbers. Nearly 10 percent of this year’s early applicants are applying from abroad, an increase from the 7.4 percent who applied early last year.
Until 2006, students could apply to the University’s binding early decision program, which required students to enroll if admitted. Fears that the policy discriminated in favor of wealthier applicants who could afford to accept offers of admission regardless of financial aid offers led University officials to scrap the policy.
The University launched a three-year test run of the early action program in 2011, which Roberts said will give the administration time to evaluate the program’s benefits and pitfalls. “I think making a judgment on a program after only one or two years is a mistake,” Roberts said.
The Office of Admission will review the early action program after next year’s applicant pool to determine how it affected the quality and diversity of the student body. “I think what we’ll look at is our ability to manage the volume in a tight window,” Roberts said.
Roberts stressed the need to examine early action’s effect on yield, which is the number of accepted students who choose to enroll.
The University’s yield for the Fall 2012 class was 43 percent, a slight decrease from the 44.9 percent of applicants who accepted admissions offers for the Fall 2010 incoming class before the early action program was instituted. The decline is in keeping with a decreasing yield annually since the Office of Admission eliminated its early decision program in 2006, as early applicants are no longer bound to attend the University if accepted.
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