Brown has received a record 20,566 applications for the class of 2012, surpassing 20,000 applications for the first time. The number of applications is a 7.7 percent increase over last year, when the University received 19,097 applications for the class of 2011. Applications were up 4.3 percent last year and 8.3 percent two years ago.
The number of applications will continue to rise, said Dean of Admission James Miller '73, because of late applications. "They'll be trickling in over the next three weeks or so," he said.
The "continuing attractiveness of Brown" contributed to this rise in applications, as well as the rising total number of high school seniors nationwide, Miller said.
The end of early admission programs at Harvard and Princeton also contributes to the increase in Brown's applicant pool, Miller said, since students who might have been accepted early to those universities can now apply to a wider range of schools such as Brown.
"As the population has grown, all of the demographic pieces have grown. So we're up in international kids, students of color, up in students from all parts of the country and up in all disciplines," Miller said. The growth has not been lopsided either, he added, explaining that each demographic of applicants has shown increasing interest in Brown, but no group significantly more so than another.
International applicants are up by about 15 percent this year, a tribute to the University's efforts to create a more international community, according to Miller. "In the last two years we've done a lot more international travel," he said.
The admissions office had representatives working around the globe in Asia, South America, Africa and Europe as long as one month at a time. The University has contacts with local schools, alums in the regions and even in the state departments of foreign countries so that they "reach out to find people," Miller said.
The new Brown-RISD dual degree program has also added to this year's admissions dynamic. "We're getting applicants we wouldn't have seen before, and I think that RISD is getting applicants they wouldn't have seen before," Miller said. Over 400 students have applied for the program. "We didn't know what to expect but we're delighted that we had that many," Miller said.
The surge in applications this year presents a large task for the Office of Admission, but it was not unexpected since applications have been up 30 percent in the last five years, Miller said. "We anticipate that we're going to go up each year," he added.
Despite the increasing number of applications to review, each application still receives the same amount of attention, Miller said. "Brown is a very personal place, so in the admissions process we want to replicate that," he said.
The Office of Admission does not know yet how many students will be accepted for the class of 2012, Miller said, because they anticipate difficulty estimating the number of those students who will matriculate. "For a couple of years it's going to (be) hard to predict," he said, partly because of Harvard and Princeton's decisions to end their early admission programs. The class size will also be marginally larger due to the addition of the Brown-RISD program.
Cora Allen, a senior at the Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, Calif., who applied regular decision this year, said, "It makes me a bit nervous that there are so many people applying because it could decrease my chances a little of getting in."
Sophia Dean, a senior at the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Mass., also applied regular decision. "This is the year that the most people are applying to college ever, so that's intimidating," she said. "It seems like before it used to make sense where people are getting in and now it's a lot more random."
