"I think that it's an aberration," said Dean of Admissions James Miller '73 of the decline in applicants at Yale. "I don't think it's indicative of any decline in the quality or appeal of Yale."
Miller attributed the continuing growth at Brown and other Ivy League institutions to the "baby boomlet," referring to the children of baby boomers who are now reaching college age. Other colleges in the Ivy League have also reported increases in applicants. Columbia saw a 7.3 percent increase in its applicants, bringing its applicants to 21,303. Cornell's 30,191 applicants was 7.5 percent above the previous year's figures, and the University of Pennsylvania had about a 10 percent increase in its applicants, to approximately 22,500. Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth have not yet released their figures.
Though the drop in applicants is noticeable compared to last year, it will allegedly have little effect on Yale's selectivity. The Yale Daily News reported that Yale President Richard Levin expects to admit 1,150 students through regular decision. This figure, in addition to the 709 accepted early, will lead to an overall acceptance rate of around 9.8 percent.
Larry Momo, director of college counseling at Trinity School in New York and a former admission officer at Columbia, agreed that Yale's drop in applicants was insignificant in the long run.
"I don't think it's a big deal," Momo said. "Yale is likely to be drawing its freshman class from a sufficiently strong and deep and talented pool, so they're going to get a great class."
Some people, including President Levin, associated the recent drop in applicants with Yale's record-low selectivity rate last year. Students at the school agree.
"I think it has to do with the fact that the admission numbers were incredibly low last year," said Lizzi Ackerman, a freshman at Yale. "Some people would rather apply to other great schools like Columbia or Brown where they think they have a better chance of getting in."
One critic attributed the drop in applications to the controversy surrounding former Yale student Rahmatullah Hashemi. A former diplomat for the Taliban, Hashemi took classes at Yale in the Nondegree Students Program from 2005 to 2006. John Fund of Wall Street Journal blamed both Yale's admission of Hashemi, as well as a purportedly insufficient explanation of the admission, for the recent drop.
Elizabeth Rodrick, a freshman at Yale, agreed with the theory.
"I kind of feel that (the Hashemi controversy) would not make a difference for people who are genuinely interested in Yale and informed in their college decision-making," she said.
