U. offers admission to 6.99 percent of applicants for Class of 2019

The University has offered admission to 1,908 students, or 6.99 percent, of the 27,290 applicants for the Class of 2019.

This makes it the most selective admission year the University has seen to date.

The number of applicants for this year was also the largest, breaking the record number of 27,189 set by the Class of 2015.

The increase in selectivity is partly because of the larger applicant pool, and partly because the University offered admission to more applicants from early action round than last year, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said.

The Office of Admission's effort to reach out to prospective applicants might have influenced in the increase in applicant pool, Rapelye added.

The University’s generous financial aid and the Office of Admission reaching out to more first-generation students earlier in their high school careers might have influenced more qualified first-generation college students to apply to the University, she explained, noting that her office is working with more than 300 programs and community-based organizations such as Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America and QuestBridge.

Of the 1,908 admitted students, 767 were admitted through the early action applications in December. The number of students admitted from regular admission was 1,141, and the acceptance rate for the regular admission applicants, including students who were deferred in early action, was around 4.9 percent, Rapelye said. The number of early applicants wsa 3,830.

The class size is expected to be 1,310 students for the Class of 2019, similar to last year’s estimate of 1,308 and enrollment of 1,314.

Of the students offered admission, 52 percent are men and 48 percent are women, and 49 percent have identified themselves as people of color. Of those, 10 percent are African-American, 12 percent are Hispanic, less then one percent are Native American or Alaskan Native and 23 percent are Asian. The percentages of males and females admitted were about the same as last year.

“We have no quotas,” Rapelye said. “There is no formula for how we do this. There’s nothing mechanistic about it. It’s a holistic review.”

Students accepted to the Class of 2019 come from 49 states in addition to Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico. The only state not represented is Nebraska. Applicants last year represented 48 states.

Legacy students account for 10 percent of the admitted class. Sixty-one percent of the admitted students are from public schools, the same number as last year.

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Fifteen percent will be the first in their family to attend college, an increase from last year’s 13.8 percent. This is the largest admitted group for first-generation college students, Rapelye noted.

Of the admitted students, 23 percent specified an interest in studying engineering. Although the number decreased slightly from last year’s 25.3 percent, a record percentage of 44 percent are women.

“We’ve been working very hard to make sure that we have a gender balance in the School of Engineering to the extent that we can find and admit the top female engineering candidates, and we’re delighted that we made some progress this year,” Rapelye said.

International students make up 13 percent of the accepted students, representing 66 countries that include Ethiopia, Georgia, Romania and Trinidad and Tobago. This is an increase from last year’s 11.4 percent.

This year’s applicant pool also included students from more than 9,500 high schools, a large increase from last year’s 8,900, Rapelye noted. More countries were represented than last year, she said.

“One of the things we are always trying to do is to make sure we have a broader and deep applicant pool," she said. "We are delighted that we have so many students applying from all over the world.”

1,207 students were offered a spot on the wait list this year, a 5.8 percent increase from last year. Although the admission committee hopes to be able to take some students in from the wait list, it is difficult to predict how many students from the wait list will be offered admission, Rapelye said.

The number of students offered admissions off the waitlist fluctuated from 0 to 165 in the past 5 years, she noted.