The Office of Admission received 2,317 early decision applications to the College this year, 61 fewer than the 2,378 received in the fall of 2005, according to Dean of Admission Jim Miller '73.
The change represents a drop of around 2.5 percent from last year. "The (decrease in) number of applications this year is so small compared to last year that it is not that big of a change," Miller said. "But it shows that ED fever is swelling down a little bit."
Miller said part of the reason for the decrease is that students are now "making more thoughtful decisions" when it comes to applying early or submitting an application for the regular admissions pool.
Brown's decrease is minor compared to the sharp drop at Yale University. Only 3,541 students applied early to Yale this year, signifying a 13-percent drop from last year's number of 4,084, according to a Nov. 17 Yale Daily News article. By contrast, Princeton University, the only other Ivy League school for which such statistics were available, had a 2-percent increase in applicants to 2,275 from 2,236, according to a Nov. 22 Daily Princetonian article.
Despite the decrease, Miller said the admissions office does not plan on following in the footsteps of Harvard University and Princeton by getting rid of early decision altogether.
"There are still those students who apply early knowing well that they would feel perfectly comfortable attending Brown," Miller said. "For that reason, the University will review its policies on admission annually to ensure that ED is still needed."
"This year's pool shows that some of these students feel very strongly about the University," he added.
Sammy Sass, a senior at Buckingham, Browne and Nichols, a private school in Cambridge, Mass., recently withdrew his early decision application to Brown.
"Even after I applied early to Brown, I still had reservations, not at all because of Brown as a school, but because of everything else," Sass said.
Sass said he did not feel pressured to apply early. However, according to Sass, over 70 percent of seniors at his school submitted early applications, and most regarded the choice as something that was expected.
"As a 17-year-old in October,? how am I going to know where I want to be in September (2007) or in four years? I think it's so weird having to decide now where you want to be when you are 21 or 22," Sass said.
Although Brown is still a top choice, Sass said he wants to be able to explore other options.
Roman Gonzalez, a senior at Mary Carroll High School in Corpus Christi, Texas, is one of three high school seniors who will be followed throughout their college selection process by NBC's "Today Show". He recently submitted his early decision application to Brown.
Though he said he sometimes cannot explain why Brown stood out among other colleges, Gonzalez said he is comfortable with the thought of starting at Brown in the fall of 2007.
Gonzalez said "no other college was as suitable" for him. He added that he was attracted to the University because of its open curriculum, activism on campus and the philosophy department - his intended area of study.
In the competitive arena of college admissions, Gonzalez said he does not know what his chances are of receiving an acceptance letter in mid-December.
"I can only hope that the admission office at Brown University will see who I really am. If they see that, then maybe I'll get a second look," he said.
