Peer institutions such as Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Chicago and Dartmouth College have also witnessed dramatic increases in the numbers of applicants, receiving their largest applicant-pools ever. Harvard experienced a 19 percent increase in applications, Chicago an 18 percent increase, Yale a 16.6 percent and Dartmouth a 14 percent increase. Amherst’s increase surpasses its rival small schools, as both Williams College and Swarthmore College experienced 11 percent jumps in applications, according to their student newspapers. The College will review approximately 600 more applications than Williams.
The admissions committee performs a series of numeric projections that take into account the number of men and women applying, SAT scores, ethnicity, grade point average, class rank and other factors in order to gauge how many students will most likely choose to attend if accepted. The admissions committee will be conservative this year in terms of the number of students they accept since 35 more admitted students chose to accept their places in the Class of 2011 than expected. The committee will most likely accept between 925 and 975 students this year, anticipates Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Thomas H. Parker. The College’s acceptance rate should be the lowest ever, projected at between 12 and 13 percent.
The College attributes this dramatic increase in the number of applicants to expanded and more aggressive recruiting outside the U.S., the school’s relationship with the Questbridge program to attract students from low-income families and the replacement of the loans with grants. “Replacing loans with grants is another reason to be cautious, but our competitors have done the same thing,” said Parker. “If Brown [University] does nothing with loans, then we will probably win over more students since our applicants tend to overlap.”
The effect of Questbridge does not manifest itself in the early decision pool of applicants because most members of Questbridge are looking for the best financial aid package so they do not wish to enter into the school’s binding early decision program.
There are clear differences between the early decision applicants and regular decision applicants. “The early decision applicants are less socioeconomically and racially diverse, which is why we limit it to 30 percent of the class. If we took more it would be depressing the class’s diversity,” said Parker. The regular decision pool tends to contain a lot more applicants for whom cost is going to be really big decision, he added.
The admissions committee consists of 13 readers and two adjunct readers who, on Jan. 2, began reading applications. In January and February, “Twenty-four hours a day you’ll find someone reading or see the lights on in the building,” said Parker.
Each application is read by at least two admissions officers. Novice readers of applications are always paired with veteran readers who offer advice and tips. For example, if a student’s numbers are within a certain range, they should (or should not) be included in the pool of those considered for acceptance. Each reader then writes a paragraph summarizing his or her opinion of the student, detailing the applicant’s strengths, weaknesses and reasons for acceptance or rejection.
“The numbers take you only so far, but they don’t let you even take the number of applicants down to the number you want,” commented Parker. “At that point, you look at the essays and the teacher recommendations.” The qualities Parker and the other 14 readers look for in an applicant are intellectuality, genuine curiosity, creativity and intrinsic motivation. “I look for people who will take advantage of this place. I continue to feel that this is such an amazing intellectual opportunity and I hate to see it squandered,” he added.
But the most concrete part of a student’s application, numbers such as SATs, are always placed within the context of each student’s socioeconomic status and opportunity. The admissions committee does make subjective judgments, said Parker. “People’s opinions differ.”
The College also gives preference to children of alumni, whose applications are also read three times as opposed to the standard two. The NESCAC dictates the number of recruited athletes accepted each year and the College averages 66.5 recruits a year. The number determined by NESCAC depends on the number of teams the school has, such as Amherst’s 29 varsity teams, but the number of “Athletic Factors” each team receives is determined by Amherst’s athletic director.
Amherst has witnessed an increase in the number of both men and women applying since last year, with 4,441 women and 3,267 men applying. The problem is the much larger increase in the number of female applicants. “We have never given preference to men or women before in the admissions process,” noted Parker. But with that many more women than last year applying, the admissions committee will have to wait and see what happens when they have their first meeting in early March.