Applications for regular decision should rise

Early-application rates may have dropped, but have no fear, admissions officials say - regular decision is right around the corner.

The next round of applications should get a boost from the introduction of the Common Application, they say, and that could make up for the smaller early-decision pool.

This is the first year applicants have had the option of submitting a Common Application, accepted at 298 colleges and universities, rather than the traditional Penn application.

Students who submit a Common Application must complete a Penn supplement as well, which contains additional essay questions.

And while Penn didn't see an increase in the early-applicant pool as a result of the change, Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson said he expects the availability of the Common Application to increase the number of regular-decision applications by 5 to 10 percent over last year.

The admissions office announced earlier this week that early-decision applications were down 2.5 percent, from 4,120 to 4,001.

But, if Stetson's predictions for the regular-decision pool prove to be accurate, the overall applicant pool could end up increasing by between 3.4 and 7.4 percent from last year, in which the University received 16,363 regular-decision applications.

Stetson said 19,000 high-school seniors have already begun a Common Application for Penn.

However, not all of these students will necessarily complete their applications by the Jan. 1 deadline, he said.

The Common Application is appealing to students because it eases the application process, Stetson said. "There's a perception that you can do it more readily."

Jennifer Rickard - president-elect of the Common Application and dean of admissions at Bryn Mawr College - called Stetson's projection "a reasonable estimate."

She said that both Princeton and Cornell universities saw their regular-decision applicant pools increase by more than 5 percent the first year they offered the Common Application.

But this type of increase is not always an expected - or desirable - effect.

Rick Bischoff - director of admissions at the California Institute of Technology, which replaced its own application with the Common Application this year - said he did not anticipate or want the change to affect the school's applicant pool.

Bishop said CalTech purposely made its supplement more challenging than the school's own application had been in previous years to ensure that students still put a lot of thought and research into their applications.

He said the supplement is meant to deter any last-minute or "afterthought" applications.

"We're not trying to attract students who are good at applying to college. We're trying to attract students who are good at science," he said.

Still, Stetson said the popularity of the Common Application is not a factor for applicants to binding early-decision programs.

A student's commitment to a school is not based on the ease of its application, he said.

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