by Cass Cliatt · Posted April 2, 2007; 10:17 a.m.

After receiving a record 18,942 applications, Princeton University has offered admission to 1,791 students, or 9.5 percent of those who applied for the class of 2011.

Acceptance letters were mailed March 29 to 1,194 students who applied through the regular decision process, and the Office of Admission also informed applicants of their decisions through an online notification system for the first time. An additional 597 students who applied during Princeton 's final year of its early decision process were admitted in December. The University expects 1,245 students to enroll in the class of 2011.

"The admitted students are impressive in their academic and personal achievements," Dean of Admission Janet Lavin Rapelye said. "They come from a wide range of schools, backgrounds and areas of the world. Their talents, interests and accomplishments made them stand out in this applicant pool. We hope many of them will choose Princeton."

This marked the third consecutive year the University received a record number of undergraduate applications, and the 9.5 percent admit rate reflects "the most selective Princeton has been in recent history," Rapelye noted. The number of applicants represents a 7.8 percent increase over the 17,564 candidates who sought admission last year to the class of 2010.

Among this year's applicants: more than 6,000 had a cumulative 4.0 grade point average; 10,000 had a combined score of 2100 or higher on the three sections of the SAT; and they came from 6,876 high schools in 135 countries. Alumni volunteers had personal contact with an unprecedented 95 percent of applicants, or 17,947 students.

The students offered admission come from 49 states and Washington, D.C., with the largest numbers of students coming from New Jersey, followed in order by California, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. International students make up 10.6 percent of the admitted students, and they are citizens of 77 countries, including Albania, Botswana, Brazil, China, Denmark, Greece, Guatemala, Lithuania, Madagascar, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

"The size, depth and strength of this record applicant pool meant that we had to make some difficult decisions," Rapelye said. "We wish we could have included more of the superb students who applied this year."

The 1,245 students expected to enroll is a slight increase over the 1,220 enrolled this year in keeping with a plan initiated in 2005 to expand the undergraduate student body from 4,700 to 5,200 students by 2012.

Fifty-three percent of the students admitted to the class of 2011 are men, 47 percent are women, and among all admitted applicants, 43.9 percent are students of color.

The University continues to admit students from families with a broad range of income levels, with 50 percent of the admitted students being offered need-based financial aid. Princeton 's "no-loan" policy, which meets financial need with grants instead of loans, allows all students who qualify for financial aid to graduate debt free.

Admitted students had an opportunity to review a brief description of their financial aid awards, in addition to learning their admission decision, through the online notification system beginning at 5 p.m. March 29.

"The system worked flawlessly, and we had more than 13,000 students check their decision online within the first 12 hours," Rapelye said.

Applicants who have not received notification of their decision may call the Office of Admission Monday, April 2, at (609) 258-3060. Decisions will be given to applicants only.

Admitted students have until Tuesday, May 1, to make their college choice.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606428&forum_id=1#7859338)

By James M. O'Neill

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Princeton University rejected 90.5 percent of applicants for its next freshman class, the highest percentage since at least 1953, mirroring a trend among many of its Ivy League peers.

Princeton accepted 1,791 students from a record pool of 18,942 applicants for a 9.5 percent admission rate, lower than the 10.5 percent rate for the current freshman class. This is the final year of Princeton's early decision process, through which 597 of accepted students received word in December.

Other Ivy League schools with low admission rates for the year include Harvard College, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania. Princeton's low rate comes in a year when it plans to expand its freshman class by about two dozen slots, to 1,245 and add 500 undergraduates by 2012 for a total of 4,700.

``The size, depth and strength of this record applicant pool meant that we had to make some difficult decisions,'' Janet Lavin Rapelye, dean of admissions at the New Jersey school, said today in a statement. ``We wish we could have admitted more.''

Princeton's rate is the lowest since the university began tracking conclusive data. Officials think the rate might actually be the lowest in 200 years, spokeswoman Cass Cliatt said.

Increased Financial Aid

Many universities, including Princeton, Harvard and Penn, have more applications as they increase financial aid packages to eliminate loans for students with significant financial need.

Yale University's admission rate increased slightly this year, to 9.6 percent, up from last year's Ivy League record low of 8.9 percent. Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut, accepted 1,860 of 19,323 applications, admissions Dean Jeff Brenzel said today.

Those who applied through Yale's early decision program were admitted at a rate of 17.7 percent, compared with 5.8 percent for regular admissions.

Yale's rate remained in line with other Ivies that set record lows this year. Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accepted 8.9 percent of applicants, while Brown, in Providence, Rhode Island, accepted 14 percent. Penn, in Philadelphia, accepted 15 percent.

Dartmouth, Cornell

Dartmouth College accepted a record low 15 percent of its applicants, or 2,165 students. The Ivy school in Hanover, New Hampshire attracted over 14,000 applications, its largest pool ever, according to The Dartmouth, the college's daily student newspaper, citing Karl Furstenberg, the dean of admissions.

Cornell University, another Ivy, admitted 20.5 percent of 30,383 applicants, a record for the school, down from 24.7 percent a year earlier. The Ithaca, New York school has had a 24 percent increase in applications over the past two years.

Other highly selective universities across the country have acceptance rates in a similar range this year. Stanford University admitted 2,465 freshmen from among a record 23,956 applicants for a 10.3 percent rate. More than 75 percent of those offered admission had a grade point average of 4.0 or higher, the university, near Palo Alto, California, said in a statement.

Duke University applications dropped 1 percent this year, to 19,170, from a record high a year earlier. It admitted 3,770 students, or 19.7 percent of applicants. It accepted 43 percent of the 1,381 valedictorians who applied, the Durham, North Carolina, university said.

At many of the schools, including Princeton and Stanford, students have until May 1 to make their college choice.

To contact the reporter on this story: James M. O'Neill in New York at joneill6@bloomberg.net .

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606428&forum_id=1#7863558)

By Doug Eshleman

Princetonian Staff Writer

The University accepted a record-low 9.5 percent of applicants for the Class of 2011, admitting 1,791 of the 18,942 prospective candidates.

Of the 16,605 students who applied regular decision, 1,194 were accepted to join the 597 who were admitted during the Early Decision round in December. This is the final class to admit students early.

The number of students accepted this year was one fewer than for the Class of 2010, despite the increase in the target class size to 1,245. This is 25 more students than the current freshman and sophomore classes, both of which have about 1,220 students, and it is in accordance with the University's plan to expand the undergraduate student body. Last year, the University accepted 1,792 out of a total applicant pool of 17,563, an acceptance rate of 10.2 percent.

Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye explained that her office anticipates a high percentage of accepted students to enroll. If 69.5 percent or more of the accepted students enroll, the class will fill without resorting to the waitlist. "We have had an increase in yield each of the last two years, and if the yield stays the same, we can go to the waitlist," she said. Last year's yield was 67 percent.

Harvard, Brown and Penn also saw record low acceptance rates this year — 9, 14 and 15.9 percent, respectively — and other Ivies saw dips as well, corresponding to the higher number of applications received across the league.

In contrast, Yale received 19,323 applications this year, 1,778 fewer than last year, and its percentage accepted jumped from an Ivy League low of 8.6 to 9.6 this year, the Yale Daily News reported.

Several hundred students were waitlisted, though Rapelye declined to specify the exact number. In the past two years, no students have been accepted from the waitlist due to the high yield. "If our yield went up even one percent from last year, it would be enough to fill the class," Rapelye said.

Rapelye declined to provide statistics on admitted legacy students but said they were similar to last year's. "We have admitted legacies at a rate three times as great [as the overall rate], and this has been consistently true for 25 years."

In the Class of 2010, 9.9 percent of those accepted were legacies, and 103 of the 597 early admits this year were children of alumni.

As it was last year, about 44 percent of the accepted students are minorities. "We have been trying to get a more diverse applicant pool," Rapelye said. "I would hope that all students are attracted to a more diverse campus."

"We are backing that up with racial and ethnic groups," she added. "Although we value other types of diversity, they are less quantifiable."

A large portion of the Class of 2011 will be receiving financial aid. "Fifty percent of the accepted students were offered financial aid," Rapelye said, "and that figure might go up as incomplete applications are completed." Moreover, 14 percent of those accepted came from low-income families.

International citizens were accepted from 77 countries and compose 10.6 percent of the accepted students. Last year, 9.7 percent of accepted students were international. Applicants came from more than 135 countries, Rapelye said.

"We saw an increase in international applicants, and we took a slightly larger group this year, but that wasn't a formula," she said, citing increased visibility of the University's financial aid program for international students as one potential cause of the increase.

The odds for athletes who received likely letters this past fall were much better than those for the average applicant. "The majority of students who received likely letters, and stayed in the process, were admitted," Rapelye said.

More male than female students applied and were accepted, as is generally the case in Princeton admissions. For the Class of 2011, 53 percent of those accepted were men and 47 percent women. "This proportion represents the applicant pool with 1,000 more men applying and about 100 more men admitted," Rapelye said.

Princeton is one of the few schools in the Ivy League where male applicants outnumbered female applicants.

Almost 19 percent of the admitted students plan to pursue B.S.E. degrees, Rapelye said, of which 60 percent are male and 40 percent are female. "We are very proud of that statistic because nationally it is much lower [for women]," she added.

Rapelye challenged the idea that some applicants were applying to the Engineering School as a "back door" into Princeton. "To be accepted, you have to write a very strong and convincing essay about engineering and do well on challenging SAT IIs in math and science," she said. "I think it's a hard thing to fake."

Of the accepted students, 59 percent are from public schools, 30 percent private, nine percent religiously based and two percent were home-schooled.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/04/03/news/17914.shtml

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606428&forum_id=1#7864646)

Preparing for the day when they will be casting off the early admissions crutch ... unlike Yale.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606428&forum_id=1#7867326)

Yale seems to have milked SCEA for short-term yield-boosting benefits; a far smaller fraction of the class gets financial aid than at Harvard or Princeton, and a higher fraction of the class is filled with those who applied early and "self-identified" as would-be Yalies.

Look: Yale got a huge, artificial boost in apps when it moved from binding ED to SCEA with the class of 2008.

What has happened in the 3 years since? Yale is the ONLY Ivy where apps have DECLINED overall - from 19,682 for the Class of 2008 to 19,323 for the Class of 2011.

While apps were declining by 300 at Yale over this 3-year period, they were rising by 3,203 at Harvard, by 5,247 at Princeton, by 4,784 at Stanford, and 3,729 at Brown. There were similar huge jumps at Cornell and Penn.

Its beginning to look as though Levin may have outsmarted himself with the SCEA innovation - with the only benefit being a short-term reduction in the size of the overlap pools with HPS.

With H + P giving up the early admissions crutch next year, their cross admit pool with Yale will increase again, with the only question being how many of them Yale can "lock up" during its exclusive negotiation period betwee Jan 1 and April 1. Levin decided to seek this short-term advantage rather than to risk losing the bulk of an even larger overlap pool if Yale gave up early admissions.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=606428&forum_id=1#7869188)