U. experiences top application jump in Ivies

The University came out ahead of its Ivy League competitors with the greatest increase in the number of applications this year. Leading the Ivies with a 23 percent increase in applications, the University has received over 12,013 applications and expects to have 200 to 300 more by the end of the month. Admissions Dean Willis Stetson said last week there are many reasons for this increase, including a less intense application and a more personalized process. The University's admissions committee also altered the process this year by encouraging prospective students to submit their personal information and their $55 fee before the rest of the application. Students and their high schools can then submit their essays and recommendations closer to the January 1 deadline. Early decision applications contributed to this increase, since they went up 14 percent to 1406. This was the second highest number of applications in over a decade. In the rest of the Ivy League, most schools saw an increase in applications, although none were as substantial. Also, the number of early applications received did not always prove to be an indication of the number of regular decision applications that would follow. Columbia University also saw a substantial increase in applications, with 10 to 12 percent more applications than last year at this time, according to Admissions Dean Lawrence Momo. Momo said he does not know how many applications the school has received. "We don't know exactly how many applications we will receive because applications continue to trickle in and we have a backlog of processing [the applications]," Momo said. The number of Columbia's early applications increased as well this year, to 355. This is an eight percent increase over last year's number. Regular admissions applications to Harvard University increased about five percent this year over last, while early applications increased 15.6 percent over last year. According to Admissions Dean Richard Simmons, Harvard received 2212 applications for early action, which is 299 more than the school received for the class of 1995. Brown University showed the opposite trend from Harvard, decreasing in its number of early applications, but eventually coming out ahead. While 9.3 percent fewer students applied for early admission to Brown, 300 more prospectives -- 2.6 percent -- applied total, said Mike Goldberger, associate dean of admissions and financial aid. Yale and Cornell universities and Dartmouth College all reported less than five percent fluctuations in the number of applications this year. Yale's Assistant Admissions Director Stewart Moritz said they expect to see a zero to five percent increase in the total application pool. This is following the university's 10 percent decrease the year before. The number of applications to Cornell has stayed nearly the same as last year, when 20,091 applications came in. This year at the same time, 20,070 have arrived. For early admissions, 2356 students applied this year, which is 1.3 percent more than last year. Dartmouth expects the number of regular applications it receives to stay about the same as last year. The number of early action applications increased by two percent. "We are expecting to see plus or minus one or two percent of the 8000 applications we received last year," Admissions Dean Frederick Quirk said. Princeton University admissions officers were unable to release the number of applications they have received this year.

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