Penn's admit stats reflect national trends

Key admissions statistics at Penn are consistent with national trends, according to Admissions office data and a report by National Association for College Admission Counseling released last week.

The survey of U.S. colleges and universities indicated that admissions trends remain stable with only slight changes resulting from increased applications and the economic crisis.

Like the three-quarters of the NACAC survey’s respondents who indicated a rise in applications, Penn reported a 25-percent increase in the number of applicants over the last four to five years, Admissions Dean Eric Furda said.

He attributed the growing number of applications to the increased efficiency of the admissions process.

“It is a lot easier to apply to additional schools once you’ve filled out the Common Application,” he said.

David Hawkins, director of public policy for NACAC, said colleges switching to nearly 100-percent online applications nationally encouraged more students to apply.

“Colleges realized there was value from a marketing perspective in allowing students to file [applications] fairly quickly,” he said.

He added that the increase in applications relates to another key finding in the report — the decline in acceptance rates.

The report cited a Department of Education study which found that the average acceptance rate at four-year institutions fell from 71.3 percent to 66.8 percent over the period from 2001 to 2007.

Although Penn’s admission rate has remained consistent in the past few years, Furda said this has not always been the case.

“When you take a look at a broader period of time, that admit rate has changed dramatically,” he said. “It was twice that before.”

Hawkins explained that the increase in colleges’ selectivity results from the inflationary effect of more applications — which ultimately hurts students’ chances of acceptance.

“Students really are unintentionally shooting themselves in the foot,” he said. “Doing a good job on a handful of applications is better than doing a mediocre job on a dozen.”

Despite falling acceptance rates and students’ growing concern over admissions prospects, colleges reported a stagnation in early decision and early action applications.

Although Penn received the most early decision applications in the country, the number of applications decreased from 3,917 in 2007 to 3,610 in 2008 — an almost-8-percent drop.

Furda and Hawkins both cited students’ unwillingness to commit to a school as the reason for the decline.

“If there’s any financial uncertainty, the prospect of making a commitment before you really know what other [aid] colleges might have given you may be daunting,” Hawkins said.

Despite the similarities between Penn admissions and national trends, Penn differed from the report in several ways — Penn’s admissions office budget had only modest increases, compared to larger increases at many schools, and its yield rate has remained stable rather than the average almost-4-percent decline.

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