Northwestern will offer fewer acceptance letters to the Class of 2016 in an attempt to both lower class size and increase the number of students who can transfer to NU, according to Associate Provost Michael Mills.
NU has decreased its number of accepted freshmen over the last three years because the number of accepted applicants who decide to enroll has been larger than anticipated.
Although admissions cut the number of acceptance letters dramatically in the past three years – by 506 between 2009 to 2010 and 801 between 2010 and 2011 – Mills said NU did not successfully decrease class size because a large number of accepted students matriculated. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions has not determined how many fewer applicants it will accept for the class of 2016, but Mills said there will be fewer acceptees than last year.
“We really just can’t afford to have another large class,” Mills said. “It’s unheard of to admit 800 fewer students than you did the year before and still get a large freshman class. We had an unexpected spike in our yield.”
NU’s target is to enroll 2,175 students: 2,025 freshman and 150 transfers. Because more accepted high school seniors are choosing to enroll, Mills said NU has had to reduce the number of transfers it admits accordingly. NU’s transfers in class decreased from 99 in 2009 to 70 in 2011.
Mills said he would like to see the transfer population grow at NU in the years to come.
“Interactions on campus, not just at the student level but among faculty and staff, are always heightened by the more experiences people bring with them,” Mills said. “When you have a blend of people that Northwestern’s all they’ve ever known interact with people that have exposure to other ways of doing things, other ways of thinking, it can only be a positive thing.”
Weinberg sophomore Justin Moore transferred from Penn State after his freshman year because he was looking for a more intellectual environment, he said. Moore said he hopes to see more transfers come to NU because he feels they are reliable applicants.
“If you look at what a transfer has done at their previous school you can get a better indication than from looking at high school how they are going to do in college,” he said. “Are they going to do well in classes, but are they also going to be involved? You know their track record.”
Matt Keith, a Weinberg senior who transferred from the University of Kansas after his freshman year, said he had to work harder as a transfer to make the transition to more rigorous academics. He said he felt it was worth the effort and would like to see more transfers at NU.
“I love Northwestern,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t get to come here, so I would love to see other people who wanted to transfer here as badly as I did get that opportunity as well.”
