Although most current Caltech students are more concerned with their next problem sets, there once was a time when they were primarily worried about one issue, whether that big envelope would come. Deciding who will be the future undergraduates of Caltech remains an important issue, and though there are a few changes in the admissions world, Caltech is primarily following its prior trends.</p>
<p>Caltech admitted 154 students out of 444 applicants for the early action pool. This is roughly the same number as last year, although slightly lower. In addition, the number admitted early is slightly lower than last year, although the committee did not purposefully seek to admit less applicants from the early pool. For comparison, MIT also had slightly fewer applicants for early action this year, with 2,822 applications compared to last years 2,833 applicants (<a href=“http://www-tech.mit.edu/V124/N56/56earlyadmit.56n.html)%5B/url%5D”>http://www-tech.mit.edu/V124/N56/56earlyadmit.56n.html)</a>. </p>
<p>The admissions committee is composed of undergraduates, faculty members, and admissions officers. There are about 16 faculty members on the committee. A listing of them may be accessed on <a href=“http://oof.caltech.edu/committees/1016.html[/url]”>http://oof.caltech.edu/committees/1016.html</a>. The current undergraduates serving (the list on the website does not include all undergraduates on the admissions committee) are Tim Boyd, Meng-meng Fu, Ben Golub, Warner Leedy, Peter Foley, Katie Richardson, Vicki Loewer, Wendy Xu, Lisa ***ui, Shelby Montague, Royal Reinecke, Mayra Sheikh, Sarah Wilhoit, Julia Ma, Kayte Fischer, and Jason. </p>
<p>Caltech continues to use an early action program, allowing applicants to apply to multiple schools during the early application period. Many peer schools now use single-choice early action, limiting the applicants to only that school during the early period. Stanford and Yale moved to a single-choice early action program two years ago from an early decision program, which is even more restrictive and binds the prospective student to attend the school if admitted early. In addition, Harvard moved to SCEA from early action two years ago. Prospective techies, however, are still able to apply to both MIT and Caltech early action.</p>
<p>Most of Caltechs peers saw their applicant pools increase this year. Harvard, for example saw an increase of 7.2% in its early action pool (<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=504519)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=504519)</a>. This change was possibly caused by Harvards President, Lawrence Sumners, declaring that families earning less than $40,000 no longer have to pay a parental contribution (the student would have to pay a small amount from savings or work). Stanford had almost a 6% increase in its EA pool, although Yale saw a decrease of 3% this year after its meteoric rise two years ago. </p>
<p>Of the early applicants, a couple hundred were deferred for consideration during regular decision. Caltechs regular decision pool currently consists of 2750 applicants, compared to 2761 applications for last year, although Admissions Director Richard Bischoff noted, There are always applications that come in late, from around the world
when suddenly an application may come from Bulgaria, or China, that took a long while to make it here.</p>
<p>Mr. Bischoff praised the faculty and students on the admissions committee for an amazing job. Because they were able to do such a terrific job, reading files and turning them around, we actually got our admissions decisions out December 10th, rather than December 21st, when we mailed them out last year. He also praised the work of David Levy and the financial aid office, who were able to mail preliminary financial aid announcements on December 20th-21st.</p>
<p>Of course, after admitting potential students, the admissions office is trying to recruit these students to come here. Our overall yield last year was 37%, which produced a class of 207 students. The admissions committee plans for an incoming class of 215 students, the number that Caltech traditionally aims for. The dates for Prefrosh Weekend have already been decided, and the prefrosh will have all needed info by the end of this month, to help them arrange their travel plans. House representatives have already been appointed, and four students have been invited to be on the planning committee for Prefrosh Weekend.</p>
<p>At the admissions office, weve been looking at Prefrosh Weekend, trying to figure out how we can make it a better experience, and not just a better experience for the prefrosh but also for our current students, explained Mr. Bischoff.</p>
<p>Mr. Bischoff described his impression of Prefrosh Weekend last year, when he was visiting Pasadena with his wife. He explained, We were feeding the prospective students, but student hosts were not invited. Particularly on this campus where students are not offered meals on the weekend, to have our prospective students come and eat lunch and say to the hosts, Oh, you gotta go fend for yourself… Were not going to do that. Were going to make sure that the students who are hosting are able to eat lunch with their prospective students. We want to treat the hosts well.</p>
<p>Mr. Bischoff emphasized that the prefrosh should be well-treated, and they should feel respected. Responding to a question regarding the extreme nature that some students display during Prefrosh weekend, Mr. Bischoff said, But if the experience is atypical of life at Caltech, then were not doing these prospective students any favors. And were certainly not doing Caltech any favors if this somehow deprives the community of any students that should be here because theyve been scared away.</p>
<p>The admissions committee will continue to be hard at work, reading over the regular decision applications and deciding the remaining students who will receive the coveted envelope. </p>
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