<p>Per Bloomburg News: </p>
<p>Swarthmore (10%) (actually 9.9% if you do the math)
Pomona (down, unspecified)</p>
<p>[Applications</a> Drop 20% at Williams as Economy Sours (Update1) - Bloomberg.com](<a href=“Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg”>Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg)</p>
<p>Per the (Allentown) Morning Call:</p>
<p>Muhlenberg (8%)
Moranian (5.5%)
East Stroudburg U +14%
Kutztown U +6.3%</p>
<p>[College-bound</a> stay closer to home – themorningcall.com](<a href=“http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5state.6806601mar08,0,6381087.story]College-bound”>http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5state.6806601mar08,0,6381087.story)</p>
<p>Confirms the general trend toward rising applications at publics, declining applications at smaller privates. The Morning Call also reports Lehigh’s decline at (14%) “even after Lehigh’s president announced free or heavily disconuted tuition for lower- and middle-income families.”</p>
<p>Per AACRAO:</p>
<p>Tulane +17.8%
Loyola (New Orleans) 15.2%
Dillard +110%</p>
<p>[AACRAO</a> Transcript - New Orleans Colleges See Applications Increase](<a href=“http://www.aacrao.org/transcript/index.cfm?fuseaction=show_view&doc_id=4177]AACRAO”>http://www.aacrao.org/transcript/index.cfm?fuseaction=show_view&doc_id=4177)</p>
<p>Haha - The article written by Janet Frankston Lorin for Bloomberg won’t win a prize for avoiding a “certain” bias or offering the necessary perspective. </p>
<p>“A low acceptance rate is one factor used by U.S. News & World Report in determining top schools.” </p>
<p>Perhaps the author might have offered a bit of journalistic “integrity” in comparing the “low acceptance rates” at schools she described (through the banker) as offering “better value.” Perhaps a bit of historical growth of applications and the resulting low acceptances rates might have been beneficial? Perhaps, she might have discovered this little gem: except for a handul of schools that are on “everyone’s” list (HYP) students tend to apply at schools that present SOME chance at admission, and thus react negatively to schools that are becoming “too hard” to get in. Is it that surprising that only Wellesley College reported an increase among the top eight liberal arts schools ranked by U.S. News. </p>
<p>“Applications at all eight Ivy League universities in the Northeast U.S. increased. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Stanford University in California and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, also attracted more applicants.” </p>
<p>Perhaps, a few numbers regarding Stanford or MIT might have offered a bit of perspective? Let’s assume that a 20% growth at Stanford was because of a few “more applicants.” </p>
<p>“Williams received 6,024 applications. Last year, applications at the school increased 17 percent to a record 7,552. Swarthmore got 5,626 applications, down from the record 6,241 last year, said Jim Bock, dean of admission and financial aid.” </p>
<p>Perhaps, a bit of historical perspective might be helpful here. You know silly things like mentioning the level of applications growth in the past five years!</p>
<p>PS Perhaps, the author could have helped us locate the Columbia’s admission numbers … by calling her alma mater. :D</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>No. Let’s not let any perspective get in the way of a good story. I keep telling people not to look at one year snapshots of small sample LAC stats. Apparently Bloomberg wasn’t listening.</p>
<p>Swarthmore’s apps had increased 33% over the last three years. This year’s “bad” application number is the second highest number of apps in the school’s history, ten percent above 2007 and 28% above 2005. Anyone who follows these numbers sees them swing up and down from year to year. The swings can often be traced to something as silly as a mention in the “ten best schools for navel-gazing” in somebody’s guide magazine that year.</p>
<p>The first column is for the Class of 2012; the last one for the Class of 2006</p>
<p>Swarthmore 6,121 5,244 4,852 4,085 3,680 3,908 3,886
Williams …7,552 6,448 5,999 5,822 5,705 5,331 4,931</p>
<p>Wellesley 4,125 3,981 3,982 3,974 4,347
Williams . 6,024 7,552 6,448 5,999 5,822
Swarthmo 5,626 6,121 5,244 4,852 4,085</p>
<p>Ah the beauty of statistics!</p>
<p>xig:</p>
<p>A big, big chunk of the increased app numbers over the last few years have been international apps – thanks to the ease of clicking submit on the Common App. The growth there has been dramatic, but the number of slots (and the massive financial aid to support international students) hasn’t seen much growth.</p>
<p>^ Wallow in your contentment, guys. Look, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over what these numbers mean for a Williams or a Swarthmore. They’ve got applications to burn. But the larger trend has to be worrying for LACs in general. In a year when applications are up sharply at most of the Ivies and many other top-tier privates, and mixed but generally up substantially at publics, the overall trend is clearly down at LACs. And I think there are reasons for it. Without the universal brand recognition of HYPSM and the other Ivies, and without the value pricing of publics, many LACs are caught in an awkward spot in the current economy—perceived as a luxury good, but a slightly risky one. Again, I’m not saying that applies to Swat, Amherst, and Williams. They’ll do just fine. But for a Macalester, a Gettysburg, a Reed, a Kenyon, a Colby, a Hamilton, this has to be a very worrying time. Not least because no one knows what the current economy will do to their yield, on top of the shrinkage in applications.</p>
<p>When you have been following the statistics for as long as Xiggi and I have, you know that “trends” in college admissions are measured in decades, not one year.</p>
<p>The last five years of admissions data have been a total historic anomoly. Anyone who tries to find a trend out of a stretch of complete outlier data is missing the mark by miles. Look at a graph of acceptance rates that go back a little further than three years ago and get back to me.</p>
<p>^ Well, I’m not the only one who thinks a lot of LACs a notch or two below the Swat/Amherst/Williams level are in something close to a blind panic right about now. The bottom’s fallen out of their endowments, they’re going to need to discount tuition far more heavily to compete for value-conscious students, they’re suddenly looking at a shrinking applicant pool after years of impressive growth, and they’ve got nowhere else to go for the money they need to provide the high-end service their customers expect. It’s not a pretty prospect.</p>
<p>I’m not aware of any college or university that isn’t deeply concerned with the economy right now. Good lord, Harvard University just borrowed $1.5 billon, Princeton $1 billion for operating cash because they are broke from a cash flow standpoint. You think they aren’t concerned? The two wealthiest universities in country having to borrow cash to meet payroll.</p>
<p>I’m not seeing anything like “blind panic” from top-100 liberal arts colleges. A few had to tap existing lines of credit when Wachovia froze the CommonFund with all their short-term operating cash., but this was hardly limited to LACs. Vanderbilt came within hours of missing payroll when the CommonFund froze. </p>
<p>Amherst is the only top 50 LAC I am aware of that has made a desperation move to borrow taxable money to cover operating expenses ($100 million bond issue two weeks ago, the result of an incomprehensively mismanaged endowment with $503 million in cash call commitments and no liquidity).</p>
<p>Actually, the most drastic cost-cutting of academic programs I’ve seen so far as been coming from the public universities. The scale of the state funding cuts in back to back years has many of them slashing programs. Most of the LACs are taking a more measured approach as they begin the process of downsizing their expenditures to meet the new economic realities over the next two to three years.</p>
<p>updated list </p>
<hr>
<p>Amherst (~1.2%)
Baylor +18%
Boston C expected even
Boston U slightly down
Bowdoin (1.7%)
Bucknell (~5%)
Brandeis (10.8%)
Brown ~+21% (still approx)
Carleton (4%)
Carnegie Mellon +12.1% (although apps count methodology in question)
Chicago ~+7%
Clemson +7.1%
Colby (7%)
Colgate down
Colorado State +10%
Columbia ???
Conn Col up slightly
Cooper Union ~+8%
Cornell +3%
Dartmouth +8.9%
Davidson +1.3%
Duke +17%
Elon down slightly
Fordham +5%
George Wash (2.3%)
Gettysburg ~(15%) (maybe just RD)
Guilford ~+5%
Hamilton (8.5%)
Harvard ~+5.6%
Ithaca (6%)
Kenyon (10%)
Lehigh (13%)
Macalester (9.7%)
Marquette +15%
Middlebury ~(12%)
MIT +17%
Northwestern ~+2% (count incomplete, 3-4% expected)
Notre Dame up slightly
NYU +0.3%
Penn State ~+4 so far
Princeton +2.3%
Providence (5%)
Reed (9.5%)
Rice +12%
RPI ~up, but not quantified yet
Smith +6%
St Olaf (1.5%)
Stanford +20%
Swarthmore (10%)
Syracuse ~(4 to 5%)
Texas A&M +6.7%
Trinity Col down maybe
Tufts ~(3 to 4%)
Tulane ~+17% at least, more growth to count
Union (8%)
UC Berkeley +0.4%
UC Davis +4.4%
UC Irvine +4.0%
UCLA +0.5%
UCSB (5.0%)
UCSD (0.7%)
UConn ~+9%
UGA ~+3%
U Illinois ~+12%
U Mass Amh ~+10%
U Minn ~+15%
UNC +17%
U Oregon ~+20% so far
U Penn (0.4%)
USC ~(1%)
U Texas +6.2%
UVa +16%
U Wisc Mad (3.2%)
Vanderbilt +13.6%
Vassar +2.7%
Washington U ???
Wellesley +3.6%
Wesleyan +21.6%
Whitman “about flat”, maybe up
William & Mary +3.6%
Williams (20.5%)
WVU (7%)
Yale +13.6%</p>
<p>According to Janet Lorin of Bloomberg News, Columbia’s applications are up 12% this year. I don’t have any breakdown of ED/RD or CC/SEAS.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech +11.5%
Georgia State +25%
Emory (10.5%)</p>
<p>[Applications</a> climb, budgets trim at state colleges | ajc.com](<a href=“http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/stories/2009/03/09/georgia_college_apply.html]Applications”>http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/stories/2009/03/09/georgia_college_apply.html)</p>
<p>It looks like Wash U’s apps are up about 5% over last year. Last year – 22,005 apps; this year – over 23,000 apps.</p>
<p>From Chancellor Wrighton’s letter to the WashU community:</p>
<p>"But the reputation of Washington University rests not only on its faculty and programs; of equal importance are the students. (When the deadline for applications to the Class of 2013 passed on January 15th, more than 23,000 students had applied for one of the 1,400 spots in the class, making this the largest and the most competitive pool of applicants in the Universitys history.) "</p>
<p>With the economy in the tank are LACs going the way of the 8track tape?</p>
<p>I think that where certain LACs made their mistake was in emphasizing their material advantages to the point where all they were doing was competing with each other for bigger and better swimming pools, student unions and the like. In today’s economy no one wants to feel as if they’re sending their kids to a country club.</p>
<p>According to the Columbia Spectator, at a dinner last night the dean of Columbia College “told the room that applications to the College are up 11 percent this year.” Presumably, the 12% increase announced by Bloomberg includes both CC and SEAS.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Absolutely not. You do not have a history going back well over 200 years in some cases to fold under this one economic downturn. They will regroup, restructure and much like the endowment growths following the 70’s and early 80’s, will be right back on top again. Do you honestly think a Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore etc are going to be done in by a little adversity? No way.</p>