This week, Dean of Admissions Henry Broaddus announced that the College of William and Mary’s early admission application pool is up 13 percent for the year. This is a very encouraging figure, and a strong early indication that demand for admission to the College remains high. We look forward to keeping an eye on the formation of what will certainly be a capable and diverse class of 2014 as it develops over the coming year.
The size of the early applicant pool is important, and generally speaking, bigger is always better. Typically, about 36 percent of the incoming freshman class will come from early applications, regardless of how many there are. Selectivity rises and falls with the size of the pool. We are currently positioned to admit the strongest group of students of the last decade to come through the early admission system.
We are also already off to a great start in crafting a highly diverse and capable class. According to Associate Provost for Enrollment Earl Granger, the College is making great headway with recruiting international and Latino students in particular. We hope this trend continues, and thank all of those in the Admissions Office for their dedication to crafting the best incoming class possible. We eagerly await learning the next chapters of this story in the coming months.
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3 Comments
A rise in early admission
A rise in early admission applications is nothing to celebrate. By forcing students to commit to specific colleges before seeing their financial aid offers, early admission programs offer yet another advantage to affluent students who can afford the schools of their choice, regardless of aid, and disadvantage those who require assistance. Kudos to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, the University of Virginia, and other top-tier schools that have eliminated this discriminatory relic from their admissions processes.
IMO, this line of
IMO, this line of ‘exclusion’ gets tiresome: William and Mary makes ample financial awards that—based on a fair, objective, and universally adopted formula (do you know what a FAFSI is??)- provide financially taxed families with the financial awards that make it possible to attend. Why should the amount of that award CHANGE from early decision to regular? What you are referring to is the EXPLOITATION by some students of the ‘shop your SAT’s’ type mentality that has mid-tier schools buying up students—at financial offers far beyond the formula— to enhance a schools stat’s for USNWR ratings (for example). Your assertion of discrimination is asserted but not shown. In fact, if you ever worked in an admissions office you’d know that the bias is FOR students from poor families. ED or not. Every single one of the people in admissions is fully cognizant that they are enabling the American dream for someone’s child. It’s not 2003 and your ‘Ealy Admissions Game’ backhanded info is about as accurate as the out of date SAT’s so listed there.
Chip, you’ve somehow
Chip, you’ve somehow managed to miss my point entirely. Early admission requires the students it benefits to pledge to attend the College WITHOUT KNOWING how much financial aid they will receive. Students with financial needs that they are not positive their aid packages will cover CANNOT apply for early admission, by definition. Most of your reply – the FAFSI (by which I can only assume you mean the FAFSA), changing award amounts, admissions preferences, etc. – seems to be part of some other conversation to which I am not a party. But if you’re seriously claiming that universities do not differ wildly and unpredictably in the amount of aid they offer students, I can only assume you benefited from early admissions yourself. Believe me, they do. And as for students “shopping their SATs” in search of an education affordable to them and their families: What the &#@% is wrong with that?