<h2>Admissions office expects to accept just 30 percent of students </h2>
<p>Applications for undergraduate admissions have increased by 5.3 percent from this time last year, according to Dean of Admissions Doug Christiansen. Minority applications have increased by 14.7 percent.</p>
<p>As a result, the percentage of students granted acceptance is projected to decrease to 30 percent of all applicants this year. The decrease in students granted acceptance is a part of a larger trend towards decreasing acceptance. Last year the acceptance rate was 33.9 percent, down from 55.1 percent in 2000.</p>
<p>“The quality of the student based on academic measure, test score and class rank is up,” Christiansen said.</p>
<p>Tour guides senior Alison Musto, who has been a tour guide for three years, and junior Katy Caudle, who has been a tour guide since fall 2005, have both noticed the increase in diversity and candidate quality.</p>
<p>“Vandy’s kind of a ‘hot’ school now,” Caudle said. “Students on tours used to be generally from the South, Texas or Chicago. Now there’s a lot more students on my tours from the Northeast or even California - parts of the country where Vandy used to not even be on their radar.”</p>
<p>Christiansen also noted a greater geographical diversity in applications with a growth, specifically, in the mid-Atlantic region.</p>
<p>“The campus has become much more of a national institution, and so the name is just getting stronger and stronger,” he said.</p>
<p>Christiansen attributed the increase to better marketing and recruitment targeting, as well as the quality of the degree.</p>
<p>“Even last spring we were doing much more and into the summer than we did in prior years, because our goal is to really go out there and help students that are academically qualified,” Christiansen said. “And I think the most important thing is just the actual educational product that the students see value in.”</p>
<p>Applications rose to 12,192 last year, and Christiansen projected this year’s applications to reach around 12,780.</p>
<p>“For 1,600 spots, to have almost 13,000 applications is phenomenal,” he said.
Caudle also noticed an increase in the competitiveness of prospective students, many of whom are surprised when they learn during information sessions how hard it has become to get into Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>“Students seem generally smarter, more academic and more motivated to succeed,” Caudle said. “Also, it seems like the students coming here are also looking at better or higher ranked schools. For example, they used to tell me that they were also applying to Emory, Wash U, etc., but now they say they’re also applying to Harvard, Yale and other reach schools. The schools that used to be considered on par with Vandy are these students’ backup schools.”</p>
<p>Christiansen similarly noted that Vanderbilt is beginning to compete with more prestigious schools and has a comparable admission rate to Emory, Duke and Washington University in St. Louis.</p>
<p>As for whether application increase is a trend that will continue indefinitely, Christiansen notes that the school will eventually reach a point were applications will not be able to continue increasing. However, the admissions office remains optimistic that the quality of a Vanderbilt degree will continue to swell, which Christiansen said he believes will help Vanderbilt graduates in the competitive job market.</p>
<h2>“Vanderbilt is becoming more selective, which doesn’t come also without some heartache,” he said. “Some people have to be denied, but that’s why we’re really trying to make sure (the students) who we recruit are viable candidates, not just candidates.”</h2>
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