Northwestern has received about 16,190 applications, the second highest number of applicants in the school’s history, university officials said Thursday. That is an increase of 556 from 2004.
The jump is credited to this being the first year that international students can receive financial aid in the form of need-based scholarships, said Rebecca Dixon, associate provost of university enrollment.
International applications jumped from 5.5 percent of the applicant pool in 2004 to 6.6 percent this year, an increase of about 210 applicants, according to a chart Dixon provided
The Daily.
“We have several hundred more applicants because we’re offering scholarships for the first time, albeit in a limited way, to international students,” Dixon said.
For American students the aid process is need-blind, but the admissions committee “will read need-aware,” for international students.
Although the university does not plan to give more than 15-20 international students a financial aid plan, Dixon said the chance that they might get financial aid prompted them to apply. Applications from American students held constant, Dixon said.
“We expected there would be more international applicants,” Dixon said. “(American) students could have gone down but they didn’t.”
University President Henry Bienen said last week that the increase does not have a huge effect on the class of 2009.
“Does it matter dramatically if we’re 300 more then last time? No, I don’t think so. We’re a very strong class,” Bienen said.
Applicants’ mean SAT score increased a few points, but otherwise there were no major shifts in the application pool.
Because more prospective students applied, the admissions committee will be more selective than usual. Officials are aiming for the class of 2009 to have 1,925 freshman and 100 transfers. Each school limits the number of students it can enroll, with Medill and the School of Music being the least flexible.
“We look at 10-year data (of) how many people were admitted and look at the yield, the percentage accepting offers of admission,” Dixon said.
The university also will need to determine how to award financial aid to international students.
“We don’t have any experience with competing for international students with financial aid,” Dixon said.
But otherwise this isn’t an unusual application year, Dixon said.
“After Sept. 11 we didn’t know if people wanted to go away from their homes,” Dixon said. “So we overadmitted and had a class of 2,005. There were more early decision students,” she said.
The application numbers for 2005 include early decision applicants. Twenty five fewer students were admitted early from 2004.
The university received a record 16,674 applications in 1997, the year after the football team played in the Rose Bowl.
Reach Ashima Singal at [email protected].
