Web Update: Application numbers dip slightly

Applications to the University fell 1.93 percent this past year, the University announced Monday morning, ending seven consecutive years of increasingly large applicant pools. The 26,663 applicants to the Class of 2016 make up the second-largest pool in University history, only smaller than the 27,189 applicants to the Class of 2015.

"The number of graduating high school students in this country has dropped in the past few years, so we have been expecting the pool to plateau at some point,” Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said in a statement. “The growing availability of early admission programs also may be contributing to a general leveling-off of applications.”

The total includes the 3,476 applicants that applied this past November through the reinstated single-choice early action program. Of those applicants, 21 percent were offered admission. This year is the first in which the University has offered early admission since 2006.

Harvard University, which also reinstated early action this past year, saw a similar dip in total application numbers. The number of applications to the Class of 2016 was 1.9 percent lower than the number of applications to the Class of 2015. Other schools across the Ivy League posted even greater drops in application numbers, including an 8.9 percent decrease at Columbia University and a 7 percent falloff at Brown University.

More to come…

Editor's note: Due to incorrect information provided by the University, the application number for the Class of 2015 was incorrectly stated in an earlier version of this story. The correct application number is 27,189.