15% Increase in Freshman Applications

TomSrOfBoston
Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:40:35 +0000

The Northeastern website said that EA applicants would be either admitted or deferred and that a “small number” of applications would be denied at that time. There were 14,000 EA decisions that went out and no more than a couple hundred posted their results on CC. My guess is that with the increasing number of applicants, Northeastern wanted to keep its options open. I have no idea what algorithm the admissions office uses to predict yield based on acceptances but it must be nerve racking to try and match the goal of 2800 students entering in September. If they were to end up with say an extra 500 deposits come May 1, it would lead to a housing crisis and larger classes etc. Northeastern will post the stats for admitted and enrolled freshmen as they become available. Most likely a lot of students will be waitlisted in March.

As far as I know, Northeastern has not sent out mass mailings offering free applications. This has been done at some elite schools: U Chicago, Washington U in St. Louis and Tulane. Some targeted free apps were sent out.

This same article could have been written about 15 years ago regarding Boston College. BC transformed from being a school populated mostly with graduates of Catholic high schools in the Boston area to a highly selective national school. BC freshman stats are significantly higher than those of Boston University. Now Northeastern’s stats have exceeded those of BU, not by much…yet! It will be very interesting to watch how this all falls out in the months to come.