Northwestern received a record number of applications for its class of 2010, said Keith Todd, director of undergraduate admissions.
The admissions office had tallied 18,177 applications as of Wednesday afternoon, surpassing the previous record by more than 1,500. Applications won’t be fully counted for at least a week.
The tally is up about 12 percent from last year. Numbers went up for all six schools at NU.
NU’s largest applicant pool was 16,674 in 1997, a year after NU played in the Rose Bowl. Last year, NU was 484 applications shy of that number.
Todd said it was too early to ascertain specific details about the diversity, gender makeup and hometowns of the applicant pool, but he said minority numbers looked strong.
“We’re certainly encouraged,” he said.
The pool does not include those who applied early decision. More than 1,200 people applied early decision, up 12 percent from last year. NU admitted 537 of these students.
The increased applicant pool could be the fruit of a plan instituted by retired Associate Provost Rebecca Dixon.
Dixon sought to “communicate Northwestern’s distinctiveness” as both a research institution and a performance hub in its recruitment efforts, said Michael Mills, associate provost of university enrollment.
The increased selectivity of Ivy League colleges and a larger pool of talented high school students applying to colleges also contributed to this year’s high numbers.
Parents and students’ desire to make sure the large investment in college tuition is spent well also led them to NU, Mills said. He said the level of financial aid encouraged students to apply.
The number of international applicants spiked after financial aid was extended to some international students for the first time last year, Mills said.
Other colleges have also received more applicants. Preliminary application numbers at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., indicated an increase, said Bruce Poch, Pomona’s vice president and dean of admissions. Some of these applications could have been duplicates however, he said.
Poch said the higher number of applications could be “spill back” from students rejected or deferred from their early decision school.
This year marked the first year SAT I writing scores were submitted as part of students’ Northwestern applications.
Although the writing score would not be counted heavily, Todd said, the office would use them for comparison in coming years.
Mills said there was no connection between the introduction of the SAT writing test and the increased applicant pool.
Despite its larger applicant pool, NU will probably admit the same number of students it does each year because its yield, or the percentage of admitted students who decide to attend, tends to be stable each year.
This will probably result in a lower acceptance rate, Mills said.
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