Locust Walk just might be a little more crowded this year.
Penn's yield rate -- the percentage of admitted students who matriculate and a good indicator of a school's attractiveness -- jumped to 65 percent, up three percentage points from the previous year.
That means there are 130 more incoming freshman than there were last year, in addition to about 100 New Orleans students who are spending the semester at Penn.
It also means that students applying for spots in the Class of 2010 may have a harder time getting in than they otherwise would have.
"Our plan is to stay with current enrollment levels," Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Stetson said, adding that this will be accomplished by decreasing the number of students admitted to the University in order to return to the normal class size of around 2,400.
Despite the negative impact the higher yield rate may have for some prospective students, Stetson sees the figure as a good sign.
"I think this is a reflection of the fact that Penn is becoming more popular," Stetson said.
Penn's yield rate is comparable to those of several of its sister institutions. Yale has a 66.3 percent rate, Princeton's improved by three points to 71 percent this year and Columbia's rate in 2004 was 62 percent. Harvard leads the pack with a yield rate of 78.5 percent.
Stetson said that this year was an anomaly.
"Each year there is usually not more than a .5 percent or 1 percent rise, but every 10 years or so we have a surprising increase," Stetson said.
He added that the yield was as low as 42 or 43 percent in the mid-1980s and that it has risen sharply since.
Over the past two decades, however, the University has relied more heavily on the practice of early decision, which guarantees a 100 percent yield rate for those students accepted in December.
And although more students chose Penn this year, Penn may not have been ready for all of them.
The jump in the number of enrolled students has caused on-campus housing issues as well as problems with students getting into classes.
Officials at the registrar's office said that students may have gotten shut out of classes, especially smaller seminars, faster this year but that they do not expect it to be a big issue because there are so many classes to choose from.
And students transferring from schools affected by Hurricane Katrina still have not even begun to register for classes. They will be allowed into the registration system on Sept. 17.
"The increased yield in students has created a challenge for us," Coordinator of Communications and Assessment for Housing and Conference Services Dana Matkevich said, adding that the University was "proactive in seeking out rooms where we could add a bed, thus increasing our housing capacity."
Matkevich added that upperclassmen on the housing waiting list were notified in May that housing might not be available for them starting in the fall and that they should investigate off-campus options.
"Internally, we worked with Off-Campus Living and reserved rooms in the Sheraton for upperclassmen who wanted to remain on the waiting list until housing on campus was available," Matkevich said.
Some areas of the University remain unaffected by the bulge in the student population.
"We are fully staffed and have flexibility in our departments to expand with the population," vice president for University life spokeswoman Leah Smith said. "As we play year after year, we anticipate growth, and our departments are prepared."
The VPUL office coordinates academic support services, student extracurricular groups and health and wellness programs, among other things.
