This year Northwestern welcomes its highest-achieving freshman class in terms of test scores, said Michael Mills, associate provost for university enrollment.

The Class of 2011 earned an average SAT math and verbal score of 1423, which is 22 points higher than last year’s class.

“This class is without question the strongest academically that we’ve had,” he said. “There have been only two or three times in the past 30 years where schools like Northwestern have had that type of increase.”

NU also saw an average 19 percent increase in applications this year, due in part to NU’s decision to accept the Common Application for the second year. The highest increase in applicants, 21 percent, was in Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, which received 14,000 of the more than 20,000 applications.

“We’ve made a conscious effort to accommodate more students,” Mills said, noting the last two freshman classes have been larger than previous ones. “It has become a hot school in the past couple of years.”

Despite its increase in applications, NU projected about 1,990 freshmen on campus this year, about 75 fewer than last year. The acceptance rate fell to 27 percent from last year’s 30 percent.

Mills said NU assesses applicants’ academic performance, course load, initiative and interpersonal skills.

NU offers merit aid for National Merit Finalists, Founders Scholars and music students with “talent awards.” But these scholarships comprise only 1 percent of about $70 million of available financial aid, Mills said.

“It’s a deeply held principle of NU to give financial aid solely on the basis of financial need,” he said. “We would not feel comfortable as an institution offering merit-based scholarships to families who could pay for it 10 times over.”

Up one percentage point to about 10.5 percent of the freshman class comes from low-income families, which Mills defined as those earning at most $45,000 a year.

“Low-income students aren’t nearly as represented as they should be on our campus,” Mills said. “We want to be able to say no student was unable to attend because they couldn’t afford it.”

Mills said one of NU’s bigger goals is to add more diversity to the campus.

Mark D’Arienzo, NU’s associate director of university housing administration, said there were no problems accommodating this year’s or last year’s freshman classes despite their larger sizes.

“Admissions supplies us with our target number,” he said. “That’s what we plan with for assignment of the freshmen.”

The bulk of Freshmen live on North Campus in the Freshman Quad or in Bobb-McCulloch Hall. Two freshmen-only dorms, Hinman-Lincoln and Elder Hall, hold about 25 percent of the freshman class. D’Arienzo said. Bobb-McCulloch Hall holds more freshmen because of its size.

“Freshmen like to live with freshmen, so any building for a large group of freshmen is very popular,” he said.

D’Arienzo said freshmen are assigned to doubles more often than upperclassmen.

“We feel the roommate experience is an overall part of the undergraduate experience and one that benefits freshmen greatly,” he said. “Students learn how to develop basic problem-resolution skills interacting with people they don’t know.”

D’Arienzo said the housing committee uses the housing application to find every freshman a good roommate.

D’Arienzo said the committee tries not to create “geographic microcosms” by assigning two roommates from the same home area.

Roommate matches made by the housing committee have a better outcome than when students pick roommates themselves, D’Arienzo said. Freshmen are not allowed to change roommates until Winter Quarter.

“They should give themselves a chance to adjust to college life and take advantage of the community they find themselves in right now,” he said.

D’Arienzo discourages freshmen from judging their roommates based on Facebook profiles.

“A number of people have said they wanted to live with each other based on Facebook, and some may have gone the other way and said, ‘I looked up who my roommate is, and I have issues,'” D’Arienzo said. “Meeting in person is a much better indicator of who that person is other than what they have online. People try to present an image online that may or may not be correct.”

D’Arienzo said a higher than average number of freshmen chose their own roommates.

“When students put down a roommate choice, if it’s mutual, then that overrides any of their personal traits,” he said.

About 15,000 high school seniors have started an application for fall 2008, Mills said.

“Every class establishes an identity once they’re here,” Mills said. “We don’t know what to expect. It looks like it’s going to be another big year.”

Reach Kristin Ellertson at [email protected].