2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
20,566 vie for College Hill
Jacob Tower
Issue date: 1/25/08 Section: Campus News
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The number of applications will continue to rise, said Dean of Admission James Miller '73, because of late applications. "They'll be trickling in over the next three weeks or so," he said.
The "continuing attractiveness of Brown" contributed to this rise in applications, as well as the rising total number of high school seniors nationwide, Miller said.
The end of early admission programs at Harvard and Princeton also contributes to the increase in Brown's applicant pool, Miller said, since students who might have been accepted early to those universities can now apply to a wider range of schools such as Brown.
"As the population has grown, all of the demographic pieces have grown. So we're up in international kids, students of color, up in students from all parts of the country and up in all disciplines," Miller said. The growth has not been lopsided either, he added, explaining that each demographic of applicants has shown increasing interest in Brown, but no group significantly more so than another.
International applicants are up by about 15 percent this year, a tribute to the University's efforts to create a more international community, according to Miller. "In the last two years we've done a lot more international travel," he said.
The admissions office had representatives working around the globe in Asia, South America, Africa and Europe as long as one month at a time. The University has contacts with local schools, alums in the regions and even in the state departments of foreign countries so that they "reach out to find people," Miller said.
The new Brown-RISD dual degree program has also added to this year's admissions dynamic. "We're getting applicants we wouldn't have seen before, and I think that RISD is getting applicants they wouldn't have seen before," Miller said. Over 400 students have applied for the program. "We didn't know what to expect but we're delighted that we had that many," Miller said.
The surge in applications this year presents a large task for the Office of Admission, but it was not unexpected since applications have been up 30 percent in the last five years, Miller said. "We anticipate that we're going to go up each year," he added.