A look at next fall’s freshman class
Buddy Atkins reports that W&L continues to be one of the most highly selective colleges anywhere in the land.
Admissions
We had a stupefying 6,221 applications for a class targeted at 450 students. We accepted 1,049 – or 16.9 percent. Both numbers – applications received and acceptances sent – are within a fraction of a percent of last year’s numbers.
We don’t have comparable 2009 figures yet, but last year Middlebury accepted 18 percent, Duke 19 percent and U.Va. 38 percent.
It's a little apples-to-oranges, but W&L’s 2009 numbers beat the 2007 numbers (latest available from U.S. News) for all these colleges: Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Davidson, Haverford and Wesleyan.
About half the W&L class – 237 freshmen – was admitted Early Decision.
The jump in applications clearly reflects the impact of the Johnson Scholarship program, funded through the $100-million gift two years ago from Rupert Johnson of the class of ’62. When we didn’t have Johnson scholarships, applications were in the 4,000 range and the rate of acceptance in the mid-20s.
Financial aid
The budget for freshman financial aid has gone from $6.13 million to $6.82 million, an increase of 11.2 percent. Tuition and fees have gone up about 5 percent.
[Editor’s note: The impact of the recession is especially severe, of course, on families that qualify for financial aid in the first place. To this grad, who couldn’t have gone to W&L without financial aid and plenty of it, the urgency of the need this year and the wisdom of responding so positively to it couldn’t be more obvious.]
Endowment update
As of the end of April, the endowment was back up to about $615 million, down from a peak of $723 million, a net loss of about 15 percent.