The "Yes!" letters are officially out.
According to Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon, the University accepted 1,675 of the 14,287 applicants for places in the Class of 2005 — an 11.7 percent acceptance rate, slightly lower than the 12.2 percent rate for the current freshman class.
Of the admitted applicants, just under 51 percent are men and just over 49 percent are women, Hargadon said.
Students of color make up 35 percent of the acceptances and 8 percent of the 1,675 lucky high schoolers are non-Americans, he added.
Those offered admission include students from all 50 states and 51 countries.
Thirty-four percent of the Class of 2005 was admitted in the Early Decision process in December.
After endless hours of grueling application reading and decision making, Hargadon celebrated the end of this year's admissions process. He emphasized, however, that the process was a difficult and enervating one.
Despite the increased number of applications from last year, the University still had to turn away thousands of gifted high school students, he said.
"It's just hard to think about all the kids we're saying no to," Hargadon said.
"As has been true for many years, our applicant group this year included several thousand terrific young men and women to whom we could not offer admission," Hargadon said, "but whom we'd have been happy to admit were our freshman class larger than it is."
More than half of the candidates had SAT scores of 1400 or higher and over half had grade point averages of 3.8 or higher, including almost 4,400 with 4.0 GPAs.
Hargadon stressed that an overwhelming majority of applicants were noteworthy not only for their accomplishments in the classroom but also for their extra-curricular activities.
The enrollment target for the Class of 2005 is set at 1,165.
The anticipated increase in the size of the freshman class by 125 students will not occur until after the sixth residential college is built.
As for the University's new no-loan financial aid policy, Hargadon said he believes the kind of applicants who apply to the University might change over time.
But he pointed out that a number of institutions that attract the same applicants as Princeton either have followed the University's lead in changing their own financial aid policies or have indicated that they will match the University's awards.
"At this time, we obviously don't have any way to gauge the effect of the recently announced changes in our financial aid policy," he said.
Hargadon noted that the acceptance rate is subject to change, depending on whether the University will be able to admit additional candidates from the wait list.
He could not speculate what the composition of next year's freshmen class will be like.
"It will not be until after we have heard from those we've admitted that we will know what the Class of '05 will look like when it arrives in September," he said.
For now, it is Hargadon's turn to wait.
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