Early applicants up as deadline nears

Author: Scott Greene

A week before the College's first early decision (ED I) deadline for the class of 2011, the number of applications received has hit 685 or seven percent over last year, Dean of Admissions Bob Clagett reported on Tuesday afternoon. He estimated that the final number would rest around 700, a rise typically followed by a corresponding growth in regular decision numbers.

"I have a feeling the figure I got this morning is not a final one," he said. "I don't want to lock myself into a set number."

Following a year in which the College saw a 21 percent increase in ED I applications to 645, it appears as though that number has been pushed even higher. At the College faculty's Sept. 5 meeting at Breadloaf, Clagett cited new outreach initiatives by the faculty, such as e-mail exchanges and phone calls to prospective students, as crucial in helping to recruit some students away from Ivy League schools. A sharp rise in campus visits early this fall also may have played a role.

"As of the end of August, [campus visits] were up 40 percent and I have no reason to believe that we've dropped in the meantime," said Clagett. "I think that had an impact, for sure. It's possible that the U.S.News ranking might have had an impact too, though I think it would be felt more regular decision than early."

The fallout from Harvard University and Princeton University's decisions earlier this fall to dissolve their early admissions programs, however, did not impact the growth in the College's early decision applicant pool. The two institution's will not implement their decisions until next year.

"I'll be surprised if, a year from now, those decisions have a very big impact on what happens at Middlebury," Clagett predicted. "It's not to say that we don't overlap, but I would see a bigger impact on the decisions that Harvard and Princeton have done on our regular decision pool much more so than our early decision pool."

Still, Clagett said all signs point to an increase in the regular decision applications as well this spring.

"We're in the position that we were in at the same time last year, where we can see the handwriting on the wall with the regular decision numbers being higher as well," Clagett said. "We're definitely going to be up in regular, and that makes us cautious as an admissions office about over-admitting early."

The admissions staff will assemble on Nov. 20 before beginning serious evaluations of the early decision applications after Thanksgiving and sending out early decisions in the mail on Dec. 15. Clagett hopes to have the Class of 2011 comprised of 35 to 40 percent early decision admits after. Even then, he hesitated to lock himself into that range.

"If there are just great applicants who apply early, then we're probably going to have to take them early," he said.

Clagett, in his second year as the College's dean of admissions after 21 years at Harvard's admissions office, cited a deadline change installed this year for preliminary application information as helpful not only because it helps the College get an earlier idea of the size of the applicant pool, but also because it allows the admissions office enough time to interview all early decision applicants. With applications due two weeks earlier than in previous years, the College now has more time to arrange interviews between applicants and the numerous alumni scattered across the country and the world.

"I felt strongly that we wanted to be able to get those students interviewed," said Clagget, "and the only way to do that was to move the deadline from November 15 to November 1.