College sees two percent increase in applications

The Office of Admission saw a two percent increase in applications this year, according to administrative officials. Over 4,400 women applied for a spot in the Class of 2015.  

"The overall increase in applications this year has been driven by notable increases in early applications to Wellesley," Dean of Admission Jennifer Desjarlais wrote in an e-mail. "We received 276 Early Decision applications (an 18 percent increase, and the largest ED pool ever), and almost 1,500 applications for the Early Evaluation plan (a 4 percent increase from last year). The interest in early programs is a strong indication that Wellesley is among the very top choices, if not the top choice, for more and more talented young women."

Other Seven Sisters faced similar increases this year. Smith College saw a 2.24 percent increase in applications, while Vassar College had a 2.06 percent increase, according to the New York Times. Barnard College experienced an 11.15 percent increase.

Although this year's increase in applications wasn't significant, Director of Admissions Joy St. John expects selectivity to heighten in the admissions cycle.  "We had an unusually high yield rate last year and so our plan is to enroll slightly fewer students over the next few years in order to adjust for the larger Class of 2014," she wrote in an e-mail.  The College admitted 1,439 students for the Class of 2014 and enrolled 633.  "Our exact plan to achieve this smaller class is still forming, but we will likely admit fewer students this year to try to achieve a smaller class size for the Class of 2015."

The number of applicants this year not only reflects interest in Wellesley, but it also reflects the basic trend of increasing applications in the last five years, according to St. John.

There is some consensus among demographers that the graduating high school population peaked in the spring of 2008, according to St. John.  But she does not expect colleges to see a gradual decline in applications through 2014, as demographers once predicted.  "If the peak was 2008, then we should have been experiencing application declines in the last three years, but we haven't," she wrote.  Instead, the College has seen an increase in applications in the last three years.

"In addition, most of our overlap institutions have not experienced declines since the peak," St. John wrote.  "I'm not sure why that is.  Some have speculated that the demographic decline hasn't been large enough to offset several other application motivators such as the increase in international applicants, the greater ease in submitting applications (more schools using the Common Application Online) and programs like Questbridge (which have helped educate students from low income families about schools they might not have had information about in the past)."

Although this year's number of applications are not a record for the college, they reflect one of the largest applicant numbers in the last 10 years.  The Office of Admission has seen as many as 4,500 applications in previous years, according to St. John.  The College's peak year in applications was for entry into Wellesley in the fall of 2005.

The Office of Admission doesn't have final data about the academic profile of this year's applicant pool as some of it is still being inputted into the system.  According to St. John, current indicators would suggest that the academic profile of this year's applicant pool is academically on par with last year's, which was "very strong academically."

"Of particular note, the geographic diversity of our applicants is consistently strong—among both international and domestic students," College President H. Kim Bottomly wrote on her new blog, the HKBlog.  The Office of Admission has also seen increases in applications from the West/Northwest, South and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.  "This good news reflects the focused outreach efforts of our Admission team, as well as alumnae and students who have worked to enhance the College's visibility."

St. John agreed.  "Our recruitment efforts are on track and we're doing an effective job of generating interest in Wellesley," she wrote.

The College continues to see the impact of its outreach efforts represented in the demographic distribution of the applicant pool, according to Desjarlais.  The Office of Admission has focused "significant attention" to areas of demographic growth in the United States and the areas of increasing economic strength and "educational mobility" around the world.  "Not surprisingly, China, South Korea, India and Singapore represent the largest increases in the international pool, and California, Florida, Texas are among the states sending larger numbers of applicants to Wellesley," she wrote.