Friday, February 4, 2005</p>
<p>ADMISSIONS
Rapelye holds town hall meeting, '09 applications rise</p>
<p>Chanakya Sethi
Princetonian Senior Writer</p>
<p>Dean of Admissions Janet Rapelye fielded questions from students yesterday in McCosh Hall.
Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye discussed plans for expanding the University’s applicant pool and provided new details on a research initiative to survey applicants’ views of Princeton at a USG-sponsored town hall meeting Thursday night.</p>
<pre><code>She also announced that applications to the University’s undergraduate program for the Class of 2009 climbed from Wednesday’s count of 16,077 to 16,290. This new figure is 19 percent higher than last year’s applicant pool and some 4 percent higher than the previous record set two years ago.
The increase in applications comes in the same year the University adopted the Common Application already used by Harvard, Yale and over 250 other colleges and introduced the option to apply online.
As she has done in the past, Rapelye invoked the approaching expansion of the undergraduate student body in 2007 and the need to improve socioeconomic and cultural diversity at the University as the rationale for seeking a “broader” and “deeper” applicant pool.
“This place can give more opportunity to more deserving students,” Rapelye said. “This will be a historic moment for higher education and a great moment for Princeton.”
The admissions dean also discussed expanded on previously-announced efforts to “find out what students really think about us.”
Some 100 on-campus interviews of current students and faculty have already been conducted by a research firm contracted by the Admission Office. Over winter break, focus groups of students in Los Angeles and Washington who were admitted to the University but chose to attend another school were conducted.
The results from those interviews and focus groups currently unavailable will be used to formulate a questionnaire that will be sent to high school juniors and seniors, along with their parents and guidance counselors.
“Are there myths that we need to debunk? Are there strengths we need to emphasize?” Rapelye asked the audience rhetorically, noting that the Admission Office needs answers to these questions. “We haven’t done much research on this in the past,” she added.
The 20-odd students in attendance, including four senior USG officials, pressed Rapelye for answers on the effect of the new grade inflation plan on admissions, efforts to recruit more students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, the eating clubs and legacy admissions, among other topics.
In response to a question from USG Vice President Jesse Creed '07, Rapelye said she was unsure of any effect of the grade inflation policy on applications, adding that forthcoming focus groups will include questions on the subject.
Leslie-Bernard Joseph '06, the newly-elected USG president, asked Rapelye about the University’s recruitment efforts outside of those at traditional feeder schools.
“Do we spend as much time at P.S. 12 as [we do] at Deerfield?” Joseph asked, referring to the prominent New-England private school which he attended.
Rapelye responded that diversifying the socioeconomic makeup of the student-body is “something everyone in admissions is wrestling with right now.”
Recruitment strategies will have to change: nontraditional means, including using local religious groups and clubs, visiting more schools and working with alumni and current students who are willing to help with outreach efforts will have to be embraced, she said.
“Some [highs school] guidance counselors have 700 students they have to take care of. How they heck are they supposed to advise these kids?” Rapelye said. “If we can find that one student, it’s going to make a difference for us, and its’ certainly going to make a difference for that student. We’re going to need more money [and] more staff members.”
Rapelye defended the advantage the Admission Office confers on the sons and daughters of alumni in response to a question from Mark Salzman '07.
“Princeton has always had a tradition of paying attention to the children of alums as most every other private institution in this country,” she said, noting that roughly 40 percent of so-called “legacy” applicants were admitted to the Class of 2008.
“I can honestly stand up and say that I think we are doing about the right thing for Princeton and alums given our pool,” Rapelye said. “We are not making sacrifices . . . some of these students we would want even if we didn’t know where their parents went. Having them as part of the Princeton family is an important part of Princeton tradition.”
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