The McIntire School of Commerce released its admissions decisions March 10.
Out of 503 applicants, 227 students were accepted, with around a 45 percent acceptance rate.
An additional 149 students were deferred. Their applications will be reevaluated at the end of the semester with their spring semester grades. They will also be able to submit an additional essay and sit for an interview to supplement their application.
The admissions committee anticipates making offers to 95 to 100 of the deferred applicants, as it is able to admit a total of between 320 and 330 students, according to the Pre-Comm Blog.
At 503, the total number of applicants this year is down from the last two years. There were 577 and 547 applications in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
Based on the admissions data provided by the school, the average number of applicants over the last 12 years is 496. Totals per year fluctuate but follow an upward trend.
There was also a decline in both female and international applicants. Commerce School Associate Dean Rebecca Leonard said in an email statement those declines were their “biggest surprises this year.”
Female applicants dropped from 43 percent in 2015 to 39 percent in 2016.
While international students were 17 percent of the 2015 applicant pool, they only made up 11 percent of this year’s total number of applicants.
This year’s applicant pool was 16.5 percent Asian, 2.19 percent black or African-American, 6.16 percent Hispanic, 3.38 percent Multiracial, 0.2 percent Native American, 0.2 percent Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, 8.75 percent Non-Resident Alien, 57.85 percent White and 4.77 percent of unknown ethnicity.
Larger differences are visible in the percentage of accepted applicants and the average GPAs of those students. The estimated final offer rate for 2016 is 62 percent, similar to the last two years which had rates of 60 percent and 56 percent — sizeable differences from rates 10 years ago, which were close to 70 percent.
The average cumulative GPA of the application pool this year is 3.60. This number has steadily increased from 3.30 in 2005, taking a jump up from last year’s average of 3.51. Even higher is the average GPA for the students who have already been accepted this year, at 3.79.
Leonard said the admissions committee looks at GPA and performance in prerequisites and other related courses, as well as the difficulty of each student’s course load and how that reflects on their abilities and interest.
“McIntire is committed to evaluating many facets of an individual's background,” Leonard said. “Therefore, admissions personnel look for evidence of competitive academic performance, intellectual ability, significant work or life experiences, as well as other qualities of character that may not be quantitatively measured.”
Leonard said these qualities include strong communications skills, motivation, tenacity, maturity, integrity, ability to work with others, self-confidence, self-reliance and leadership.
Second-year College student Ryan Hindle was accepted into the Commerce School and said he thinks his essay and extracurricular involvements helped his application.
“They want to see that you’re really involved in things and that you are pursuing those passions that you have outside of just the prerequisites that you’re taking, which I thought was reflected really well in my application,” Hindle said.
Hindle said he thinks the admissions committee looks for students to convey their true selves in the application process.
“Besides the hard work that I put into the classes and putting a lot of work into the essays and making sure they were well written — I think more than anything — just trying to get across in the application my true self, just a really good reflection of me,” Hindle said.
Though a majority of the incoming Commerce students have already been chosen, almost a third of the group is yet to be decided. Around 65 percent of deferred applicants will be accepted at the end of the semester.
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