Last month, the University accepted 523 of the 2,307 early decision applicants to the Class of 2011 - making the University the most selective for early decision admission in the Ivy League for the second consecutive year.
The early decision acceptance rate at Brown, 22.7 percent, remained constant from the previous year. However, the actual number of accepted students decreased slightly as the number of early applications declined by about three percent.
The University rejected 293 applications, or about 12.7 percent of the applicants, according to Dean of Admission James Miller '73. The remaining 1,491 applicants, comprising 64.6 percent of the pool, were deferred.
"It was a pretty strong group of people applying early decision," Miller said. "We ended up deferring a large number to compare them with the regular decision pool."
With its 22.7 percent early decision acceptance rate, Brown remained the most selective in the Ivy League for a second year, though early admission numbers for Cornell were not available. After Brown, Columbia had the second lowest acceptance rate at 24.4 percent, slightly below Princeton's rate of 26.2 percent. The University of Pennsylvania accepted 29 percent of its early applicants, and Dartmouth accepted 29.7 percent. Cornell has not yet released early admissions figures, but last year it had the highest Ivy League acceptance rate at 46.7 percent.
Harvard and Yale universities, which have single-choice early action programs, were the most selective schools for early admission in the Ivy League. Yale accepted 19.7 percent of early applicants, while Harvard accepted 21.8 percent.
The gender imbalance - females heavily outnumber males - among Brown applicants continued this year. "It's a national phenomenon," said Miller. He estimated that males totaled only 41 percent of the early decision pool. "It was about the same as last year."
Next year, Princeton, Harvard and the University of Virginia will eliminate their early admission programs, and Miller speculated that early admission statistics might change as a result. "Everybody's trying to figure out what it will mean," Miller said. "It will have an effect. It may end up increasing application pools, but I don't think anyone knows for sure."
According to admission officials, one possible result of the elimination of early admission programs at those schools is that both early and regular applicant pools might increase next year. Students who want the security early admission programs provide might now apply to other schools with early admission programs, such as Brown. Also, those students who would have previously been accepted early to Princeton or Harvard and would not have applied elsewhere will now apply to a range of schools, raising the number of regular-decision applications nationwide.
Changes in the numbers of applicants and the acceptance rate might prove fascinating to admission officers and other observers, but to the applicants themselves, only one thing matters - their own admission decision.
Daniel Mahr '11, a senior at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., was one of the 523 hopeful Brunonians who made the cut. He attributed his acceptance to a strong academic profile paired with a number of extracurricular activities that pertained to engineering, his main field of interest. Mahr builds computers in his spare time and heads the technology and communications committee in his high school's student council.
"I think that might have made a difference on my application because for engineering you submit two additional essays, and in those I was really able to ... go into detail and I had concrete evidence of interest in those fields," Mahr said.
Lauren Levine, a senior at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School in Acton, Mass., who was deferred by Brown, devised what she facetiously termed "Operation Brown Acceptance." She described her scheme as "a five-point plan to stay optimistic and do everything in my power to make sure it goes well," which includes sending an extra recommendation and an updated list of accomplishments, visiting Brown again and contacting the admission office, her interviewers and a professor to find out how she can maximize her chances of admission in April.
Levine said that Brown's open curriculum was the main draw for her. "I don't know exactly what I want to do when I grow up. I'm really curious about lots of different subjects, so I love the freedom to explore whatever interests me."
