U. sees dip in applications

This year’s total includes the 3,476 applications received in November for the single-choice early action program, which was reinstated in 2011.

Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said she was not surprised by the decrease in application numbers.

“We had a new early program as well as some other schools, but we also know that there has been a slight decrease in the number of high school students graduating from high school over the last couple of years, so we were expecting a leveling-off at some point,” Rapelye explained.

In recent years, the University’s application numbers have trended upward. From the Class of 2014 to the Class of 2015, applications increased by 3 percent; admission numbers saw a similar 19.5-percent increase from the Class of 2013 to the Class of 2014, a 2.8-percent increase from the Class of 2012 to the Class of 2013 and a 6-percent increase from the Class of 2011 to the Class of 2012.

Some peer schools saw similar dips in application numbers this year. Harvard, which also reinstated early action in 2011, received 34,285 applications in total, a 1.9-percent decrease from the number of applications for the Class of 2015. Columbia saw an 8.9-percent decrease with its 31,818 total applications, and Brown received 28,671 applications, 7 percent lower than last year. Penn received 31,127, 1.7 percent less than the school received last year.

In contrast, Yale saw a 5.8-percent increase in applications, with a total of 28,622 of applications. Cornell saw an increase of 3.5 percent with 37,673 applicants, and Dartmouth saw an increase of 3 percent with 23,052 applications.

However, the smaller applicant pool will not affect the University’s ultimate class size for the Class of 2016.

“The class size is the same size ... We’ve gone through a gradual expansion to the freshman class, but we are at a steady state now of 1,300. That was a plan that had been put in place about 10 years ago,” Rapelye said.

726 students — or 21 percent of those who applied — were offered early admission in December. Of the remaining early applicants, 1,921 were deferred to the regular applicant pool.

Rapelye added that international applications increased between 2 and 4 percent. She attributed this increase to the University’s “no-loan” financial aid program, which means that international students who qualify for financial aid do not need to repay their grants.

“I think higher education in the United States is seen as a real goal for many international students,” Rapelye said, “and the fact that Princeton has financial aid for every admitted international student I think makes us very popular with international students. Not every school can offer that.”

This year’s applicant pool also includes more students interested in the engineering program.

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“Just in sheer numbers we have slightly more students applying for the BSE degree,” Rapelye said. “I don’t know yet if that will be reflected in the quality of the pool ... so we’ll wait and see.”

The Office of Admission, she said, has yet to do any other analysis on the trends in the applicants. Rapelye said that the University anticipated taking students from the wait list this spring.

“When we admit the students in April, we expect we’ll probably go to the waitlist in May in order to get to 1,300,” Rapelye said. “We will aim to come in slightly lower than the number and take some of the wait list, which will be a very good thing.”

Although the final deadline for regular decision applications was Jan. 1, the count for this year’s total applications has not been finalized.

“We will still receive more applications that come in from overseas that are still in the mail,” Rapelye said. “The number that we have published right now is not our final number, but it will be close to it.”

Rapelye said that the Office of Admission will continue to process applications coming in late through the mail, “if we feel they were sent in good faith and just took a long time to get here, which sometimes it does.”

The University will announce application decisions for regular decision applicants and deferred early action applicants in late March, according to the Office of Admission.