The Admission Committee finalized their early decision acceptances yesterday and will be sending out letters notifying candidates for the Class of 2011 of their status tomorrow. The committee has voted to accept 134 of the 350 applicants, defer 175 candidates and reject 38 students. The early decision acceptance rate currently stands at 38 percent.
The early acceptance rate is always higher than the regular acceptance rate because a large percentage of recruited athletes and children of alumni tend to be admitted via early decision.
Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Tom Parker expects to accept 15 to 20 more, and maybe even more, of the deferred early decision applicants through regular decision "because the ED pool was very strong."
Parker said the admitted students are "a remarkably interesting group of people that [he] would feel privileged to teach." 70 males and 64 females make up the 30 percent of the Class of 2011 that has been admitted thus far.
Twenty-eight percent are students of color as six African Americans, 11 Latinos, nine Asian Americans and 12 students of mixed heritage make up the group of accepted students. "We're really excited about the diversity," Parker explained. "10 years ago it would have been unthinkable to have this kind of diversity."
Early decision applicants tend to be less diverse than the regular decision pool, so the Admission Office expects the diversity percentages to climb to the record-high levels of the Class of 2010 come April.
Parker noted that the strong diversity, coupled with the strong intellectual capabilities of this year's class, is particularly impressive. The average SAT scores are 713 in Critical Reading, 704 in Math and 715 in Writing. The average ACT score is 32. 28 students, or 21 percent, are children of alumni.
While the College received about 40 fewer applicants and accepted a slightly greater number of students through early decision this year than last, Parker anticipates receiving incredibly high numbers of applications this year. He said the College has welcomed record numbers of visitors this year and has had to reprint applications because they ran out for the first time.
Parker said he is not surprised that the College received slightly fewer early decision applications this year, a number which, in fact, resembles the past 10-year average of ED applicants. He noted that Amherst was "even more scrupulous in telling students not to apply early this year." "It was a very self-selecting pool," Parker said. "We are very strict about kids applying for the right reasons instead of for the wrong reasons."
Yale University experienced a 13 percent drop in early applicants, while Brown University received one percent fewer applications this year. Princeton University faced a 2-percent increase and Harvard a 3.5-percent increase in applications, according to their student newspapers. Numbers from Williams College have not yet been released.
In his Sixtieth Annual Report to Secondary Schools, Parker wrote, "We explicitly counsel parents and students to be cautious about applying early to Amherst. In short, we ask them to fall in love with Amherst rather than to strategize."
"We have formally simulated taking more than 30 percent of our class early, and it is clear from our findings that such action would depress the socioeconomic diversity of our entering classes. We will, therefore, continue with our self-imposed cap of 30 percent," he added. "Since 20 percent of the Class of 2010 are Pell Grant recipients or Pell-eligible, we are confident that we have achieved proper balance with our ED Program."
Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia all eliminated their early programs because they feel they limit the socioeconomic diversity of their incoming classes and cause unnecessary anxiety. But, Parker pointed out in his letter, "Early programs in and of themselves do not depress socioeconomic diversity, nor do they further contribute to the general anxiety."
He wrote, "What does accomplish these things is the abuse of early programs, and by abuse I mean accepting half or more of a class early and implicitly or explicitly promulgating the impression that applying early is a distinct advantage in the admission process."
"The critique of early [programs]-I just don't think it applies to us because we are so disciplined," said Parker. As to whether or not Amherst plans to eliminate its early decision plan come next year, Parker replied, "We're very happy with where we are."
"We have avoided abusing early programs," he said. "We could have very comfortably taken 35 percent, but we're not going to do that because we are sticking to our cap."
The College has long been the leader in diversity and financial aid among the nation's top private colleges and universities. The College is need-blind in most senses of the term and has eliminated loans from financial aid packages of low-income students and reduced them for middle-income students. If the Board of Trustees approves the Committee on Academic Priorities (CAP) plan to expand each incoming class by 20 students and become need-blind for international students when it meets in January, the diversity of the College should only continue to increase.
Parker said he hopes the CAP plan will be endorsed by the trustees because he believes its recommendations will be "great for Amherst in terms of continuing to be an interesting place."
So how will the Class of 2011 shape up? According to Dean Parker, "We'd love next year's class to look a lot like this year's class, which I think is terrific."