Applications to Northwestern drop by 4.7 percent
Three freshmen embrace each other at Millenium Park during Wildcat Welcome’s Purple Pride event. After increases in recent years, the total number of applications Northwestern received dropped by almost 5 percent this year.
January 20, 2015
With 32,090 total applications for admission to the Class of 2019, Northwestern has received 4.7 percent fewer applications than it did last year.
Regular decision applications totaled 29,297. Although they were due Jan. 1, applications continued to “trickle in” for the following few weeks, said Mike Mills, associate provost for University enrollment.
Mills said applications from African-American, Hispanic and international students have increased, while applications from Asian-American and Caucasian students have decreased. In addition, he said, there appears to have been a drop in applications from students with lower test scores. He added that if the number of applications decreases, it’s preferable to have that decrease in students with lower scores.
Mills said because nearly half of the early decision pool received early admission, it’s “uncertain” if the acceptance rate for regular decision applicants will change.
“We admitted a lot of students (in the early decision pool) because the quality was so terrific,” Mills said. “We’ve got more deposited students at this point than we had last year, but I’m not certain if it means we’ll need to take more regular decision students.”
Last year, the overall acceptance rate was 13 percent, and the regular decision rate was between 8 and 9 percent, Mills said. He said students would be notified of their acceptance during the third week of March.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @olivesocean
