Early decision applications to Boston University for the incoming freshman class have increased by more than 20 percent since last year, according to BU officials.
BU Spokesman Colin Riley said that the university has received 1,072 applications for the incoming freshman class, compared to 883 last year.
“That’s a significant increase,” Riley said in an interview. “As the caliber of the students and faculty get stronger, there’s a stronger interest among higher caliber students applying to four-year colleges.”
Riley said that BU does not plan to make more slots available in the class of 2016 to accommodate the growing number of applicants. Instead, BU expects to have a slightly smaller freshman class, as it did last year.
“We’re not trying to grow the freshman class,” Riley said.
Riley said the number of early decision applications could likely make the regular decision applicant pool more competitive.
“If you accept more early decision, you have fewer slots in the regular pool to fill,” Riley said. “If you have fewer slots in the anticipated class to fill, it’s likely that it might be more competitive in regular admissions as well.”
BU officials originally reported a 19.7 percent increase in applications, according to a Nov. 30 article in The New York Time’s The Choice Blog. BU Admissions had reported receiving 1,057 applications, 42 percent of which were accepted. BU predicted that it will have a class size of 3,900 for fall 2012.
Riley said, however, that it is too early to determine the final number of students accepted in the early decision process.
The more recent figures include applications that were submitted after the Nov. 1 deadline, as a result of power outages that occurred in a snowstorm that hit the East coast, Riley said.
Winchester High School senior Olena Kowal, who applied early decision to BU, said that in spite of the increase in competitiveness, she feels optimistic about her chances of being accepted.
“BU’s early decision program appealed to me because I really like the fact that applicants receive their admission decision by Dec. 15, and that it is binding,” Kowal said.
The increase in applications reflects how competitive BU has become over the years, Kowal said.
“Obviously, it makes it more difficult for applicants to be accepted, but in the end I think it will make students push themselves harder academically,” she said.
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences freshman Neil Desai, who said he was accepted early admission to BU, said he was not shocked by the 20 percent increase in early decision applications this year.
“I’m not surprised that more students are applying because there is something really appealing about living in the city and experiencing the vibrant culture,” Desai said.
Riley said the upward trend in early decision applications at BU could be related to to high school students’ diligence in researching schools thoroughly during the college process.
“High school seniors are increasingly are very savvy and have done a lot of homework in regard to the schools and programs they want to apply to,” Riley said. “If they’ve decided to apply early decision to BU, that means they’ve looked closely at it, and that they believe they are a good fit.”
No matter what the Dec. 15 admissions hold, Desai said he felt satisfied having applied early.
“It took a lot of pressure off when I was accepted, and I could just complete my senior year already being accepted to the college and program of my choice,” Desai said.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
