Opening Up the Ivies

Ivy League universities are about to get a whole lot larger.

Physically, for one. Penn will acquire the postal lands, a 42-acre swath of land directly east of campus, next year; construction will span the next few decades, and current plans call for new science facilities, residential housing and green space.

Penn is not alone. Harvard and Columbia universities are both planning expansions of their own, Harvard into Boston's Allston neighborhood and Columbia into the "Manhattanville" area five blocks north of the current campus. Brown University, too, is in the early stages of planning an expansion.

But with the physical sizes of several Ivies set to increase, some are also looking into expanding their student populations.

Princeton University is in the middle of increasing its undergraduate class size by 11 percent. Columbia is set to form a task force to examine enlarging its college by up to 12 percent. And while Harvard officials say they're not at that point yet, they did not rule out giving the student body a boost.

But if student bodies get larger, there could be an accompanying rise in admissions rates at some of the nations most selective schools, raising the possibility that those institutions' prestige could suffer.

A definitive answer to that question is far down the road. But some experts say prestige is unlikely to be a factor, and even add that less-selective institutions might be, in the long run, just what higher education needs.

In 2000, a Princeton committee released a report suggesting that Princeton increase its class size, seeing a rosy future in adding students.

"Far from sacrificing academic or nonacademic quality, adding 125 students to each class would enhance its quality and vitality and enrich the university as a whole," the committee wrote in its report.

The school is now in the process of acting on that recommendation, and plans to finish implementing it by 2012.

Princeton officials, through spokeswoman Cass Cliatt, declined to comment on the expansion for this article.

But while this increase may improve Princeton's academics and student life in the ways the committee suggested, there might be another effect - increasing the school's admissions rate, which was just above 10 percent for the Class of 2010.

The admit rate is a measure of the school's selectivity, and a low rate can lend an aura of prestige.

Of course, admissions rates depend on more than just the number of spots available in a class. The size of the applicant pool and the yield - the percentage of accepted students who actually end up attending the school - are factored in as well.

Higher yields allow universities to make fewer offers of acceptance, driving admit rates down.

If Princeton's class size goes up as planned, while its applicant pool and yield stay the same, its admissions rate would rise to 13.4 percent admissions rate, 3.2 percentage points greater than it is now and close to Brown University's acceptance rate for the Class of 2010. Suddenly, Princeton looks a little less choosy.

But far from hurting schools through a loss of prestige, higher-education experts say that rising admit rates could end up being a plus for the uber-selective Ivies.

Jon Reider, a college counselor at San Francisco University High School, says that the prestige of brand-name schools like Harvard isn't easily altered, whether by a jump in admit rate or a scandal involving a top administrator. Reider pointed to the negligible effect that former-Harvard President Larry Summers' comments on women and science had on the schools' applicant pool.

"Prestige at these places is going to be intact, no matter what. These schools are impervious to bad news," Reider wrote in an e-mail message.

Meanwhile, Reider thinks, that loss of selectivity could turn out to be somewhat beneficial for a school that is perceived as being impossible to get into.

"It is nice to be seen as selective, but you can also have too much of a good thing. At a certain point, you begin to look inaccessible, and able students may decide not to risk rejection," he wrote, adding that he thinks Harvard, Princeton and Yale may be approaching that point.

And this sentiment is mirrored in the Princeton report that spurred the class-size expansion.

"Growth in highly qualified applicants means that the university is turning away greater numbers of excellent students, and one concern is that this trend might discourage some excellent applicants from applying," the committee wrote in 2000, when Princeton's admissions rate was almost 2 percentage points higher than it is today.

And across the League - though no other Ivy has yet announced plans to grow its student body - the schools that are either contemplating adding students or keeping the possibility on the table are also among the most selective.

At Columbia University, with an admit rate of 9.6 percent for the Class of 2010, student expansion seems to be a distinct possibility.

Columbia is about to form an undergraduate-education task force that will look at, among other things, whether to expand the size of the university's college.

"We're the smallest college in the Ivies," Columbia Provost Alan Brinkley said, noting that any decision about class size would be unrelated to discussions regarding the school's ongoing physical expansion project.

If Columbia were to enlarge its student body, Brinkley said, it would likely add about 500 total undergraduates, corresponding to a 12-percent increase in size.

Increasing its class by about that much would boost Columbia's admit rate to 14.6 percent, assuming its applicant pool and yield held steady.

Brinkley agreed that a larger class size might cause a corresponding increase in Columbia's admissions rate; however, he said that since Columbia's applicant pool has been on the rise for the past 14 years "we don't expect the admissions rate [would] change that much."

For its part, Harvard - Class of 2010 admit rate 9.3 percent - is still far away from a decision on whether to increase class size, officials say. The question is bound up, they say, in a struggle over undergraduate housing.

But despite this, increasing the undergraduate student body still remains a possibility.

"It is of course possible that, at some future time, the college will be enlarged," Harvard Director of Admissions Marlyn Lewis wrote in an e-mail message.

Eric Buehrens, the deputy provost for administration at Harvard, said that additional undergraduate housing will almost certainly be built as part of the Allston expansion. The question, he said, is whether new dorms would be added to Harvard's number, or would replace current structures.

Harvard spokesman John Longbrake also would not close the door on expanding Harvard's class, writing in an e-mail that "in the immediate future, our focus is on increasing the faculty-student ratio, not on increasing the student body. However, Allston is a long-term project that we have said will develop over the next 50 years. We understand the need to be open to possible needs down the road."

A purely hypothetical growth of Harvard's student body by 11 percent - the amount of Princeton's expected expansion - would not impact the Boston school's admit rate as much as some other schools'. The reason: Harvard's astronomical yield rate, almost 80 percent for the Class of 2010.

Holding yield and applicant pool steady, Harvard's admissions rate would rise to 10.3 percent, just one percentage point higher than it was in this past admissions cycle.

Meanwhile, Penn President Amy Gutmann says that Penn, which took 17.7 percent of its applicants in the most recent cycle, has "no plans for expanding our class size." The University has "one of the largest class sizes among our peers, and it's really good that we maintain it as it is."

Richard Spies, the executive vice president for planning at Brown, similarly says that the Providence, R.I., institution also has no plans in the works to enlarge its student body. Brown admitted 13.8 percent of the applicants to its current freshman class.

Michele Hernandez, president of Hernandez College Counseling, agreed with Reider and added that some schools' admissions rates may be getting too low.

"I think [less selectivity is] fairer. At least [a 15-percent admissions rate would] give everyone a fighting chance," she said.

Hernandez said she views admissions rates like Yale's 8.6 percent in the most recent cycle are inordinately low. She would rather see admissions rates of 15 to 20 percent at the lowest, she said.

Class expansions at the more selective Ivies would move them closer to this range.

Early applications to Yale are down by 13 percent this year, Hernandez said, adding that she thinks this might be because people see the Connecticut school as too selective - she herself discourages her clients from applying there because it's "too much of a risk."

Less selectivity at Harvard, Princeton and Columbia would "even the playing field a little, but not that much - it could be in the right direction," she said.

And the schools themselves, not just applicants, could benefit, Hernandez said: Their prestige would be largely unharmed, and they would be able to give greater consideration to candidates with less-than-perfect applications.

"It gives them wiggle room [to take] great kids that they might otherwise not have room for," Hernandez said.

Maybe a little wiggle room is just what the doctor ordered.

- Staff writer Deena Greenberg contributed to this report

A look at several schools' plans for physical expansion:

Penn: With the acquisition of Postal Service property to the east, Penn's campus will stretch from the Schuylkill River all the way to 40th Street. And with a planned new pedestrian bridge linking Locust Walk to Center City, Penn is envisioned as a gateway between Center and University cities.

Large amounts of new green space will also be opened up, with four specific parks planned around the Palestra and the medical center.

A new college house is set to be erected on Hill field; nanotechnology and science buildings will be built; additional retail, office and mixed-use spaces are slotted; and a new sports field house will be attached to the Palestra.

Columbia: Columbia's 18-acre "Manhattanville" expansion plans aren't just meant to expand the university. Officials say they are meant to serve a much more pressing and important need.

"Manhattanville is not a discretionary project. . It is a project to allow us to survive," Columbia Provost Alan Brinkley said.

Columbia, which is located in the densely packed Morningside Heights neighborhood of uptown Manhattan, needs the space if the university is to grow at a normal pace, making it a sort of "safety valve for the university," Brinkley said.

The university will use the space for a variety of purposes: relocating administrative functions there; building undergraduate academic buildings; erecting a new neuroscience lab along with new buildings for the arts and business schools; and providing other mixed-use areas.

Officials hope Manhattanville will provide the New York school with the opportunity to expand its offerings and facilities in badly needed ways.

This will "allow the university to experience the . growth that all universities should experience," Brinkley said.

Harvard: Harvard's acquisition of about 200 acres in Allston - an area of Boston, across the Charles River from Harvard's Cambridge campus, in which its business school is currently situated - presents a number of opportunities for the university.

Primary in Harvard's plan for the new campus is a "first science" facility that will bring science faculty members together and allow for "hands-on, real-world science-based education for undergraduates," said Eric Buehrens, Harvard's deputy provost for administration.

New arts and culture spaces are also planned, and some graduate schools may also be relocated.

New undergraduate housing may also be built across the river, with a new student center planned.

The idea is to build "Allston as a very multifaceted undergraduate academic and community center," Buehrens said. We are "trying to put a lot of thought . into the community planning parts of this. It's not easy."

Brown: Brown, too, sees a need to expand in order to experience the sort of growth that other universities have.

Ivy League "campuses have [traditionally] doubled every 35 to 40 years - not so at Brown," Richard Spies, Brown's executive vice president for planning, said.

Brown's development will follow what Spies terms "three fundamental tenets:" focusing on pedestrian circulation, using Penn's Locust Walk as an example of improvement; using current on-campus space in more efficient ways; and growing beyond its perch atop College Hill.

To address this last issue, Brown has purchased properties in Providence, R.I., about a 10-minute walk away from the main campus - in the so-called Jewelry District - and closer to some of the hospitals affiliated with the school.

Some options for expansion include new undergraduate housing to offset the numbers of students living off campus; graduate-student housing; new academic spaces and libraries; and improved science - particularly biomedical - facilities.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.