As the Office of Undergraduate Admissions begins to review early decision applications for the 2000-2001 academic year, it is dealing with a smaller number of prospective students than last year - a phenomenon that can be attributed to a combination of factors, officials said.
The applications, which were due Nov. 1, are read under the assumption that all high school seniors who are accepted in the early decision "round" will enroll at the University in the fall of 2000. While Assoc. Dean of Admissions Larry Groves does not yet have an exact count of this year's early decision applications - which he estimates at about 1,800 - he said they number fewer than last year, when 1,884 early applications were received.
Dean of Admissions John A. Blackburn declined to comment on exactly how many fewer applications were received this year compared to last year.
Several reasons exist for the decline in the number of applications, Groves said.
One reason is that the Board of Visitors raised the application fee from $40 to $60. Another is that the Admissions Office reformatted the undergraduate application. In previous years, prospective students were required to fill out and return an objective "Part 1" application, before they received "Part 2," which consisted of several essay questions. Beginning this year, anyone who expresses interest in attending the University receives both parts of the application at once.
"With the two-part application," Groves said, "people would get the first part, we'd send the second part and some of them would decide that [the essay application] was more than they wanted."
With the new application "people will know [what they are getting themselves into] to begin with," he said.
He added this year's drop in applications could be accounted for by what he believes to be the virtual disappearance of 10 to 12 percent of Part 1 applications that, in years past, were never followed by Part 2.
But Groves said many factors that contribute to the number of admission applications that a university receives in a given year are beyond control.
"It's hard to attach a cause and effect to this," he said.
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