Schools anxious over applications

Cynthia Bonn, dean of admission at the University of Rhode Island, doesn’t feel comfortable right now, and she won’t be until May.
In years past, Bonn could project by now with relative accuracy the size of the incoming freshmen class for the fall, based on historical data. But this year, with the economy in a freefall and the May 1 deadline looming for incoming students to submit deposits, all bets are off.
Still, the pressure is on. It’s critical URI brings in about 3,150 freshmen next fall. Missing the target could cost the school dearly in revenue, something particularly difficult to absorb considering the state’s dwindling appropriation to the school.
Bonn said last week that she is pleased the university already has received 33 percent more deposits than at this time last year. “Things are looking good,” she allowed.
But in the next breath, she added that the uncertainty of the economy is creating big question marks for families examining the potential tuition bills, and in turn, for Bonn.
“April is the worst month in the life of an admission officer,” she lamented.
Similar scenarios are playing out in college and university admission offices across the state this month, where the steep economic downturn has played havoc with usual calculations school officials use to determine how many students are admitted and how many will ultimately show up in the fall.
Families are doing more comparison shopping and fretting over the ability to pay the bills in the future, and longer waiting lists at top-notch schools have a trickledown effect as some students are holding out more hope that a spot will open at their first-choice schools.
No one is sure how it will play out in the coming weeks.
“[Admission officials] are definitely more in the dark this year,” said Fred Bartlett, a former Springfield College admission director who now owns Passport 2 College, a Jamestown-based firm that advises families in the college-application process. “They don’t have the research, the history for a model to duplicate an economy like this.”
As a result, many schools have admitted more students for fall in hopes that a bigger pool will make up for the fuzzy admission picture. Waiting lists, too, have grown longer. Some schools have beefed up their scholarship and aid packages, and others more than ever are counting on recruiting events such as special campus receptions for accepted students to nail down commitments.
At Brown University, James Miller, dean of admission, is hardly worried about being able to fill the 1,485 slots for the freshmen class at the popular Ivy League school. Brown fielded 25,000 applications this year – a 21 percent increase over last year – and admitted about 2,700.
For Brown, it’s a matter of attracting the brightest students possible.
“It’s definitely harder to predict how families are going to react,” he told Providence Business News. “But you make the best estimate you can, and then you recruit like heck.”
College admissions have always been a mix of science and art.
Schools typically admit many more students than they could actually handle. Admission officers rely on historical data to get a good indication of how many will actually submit deposits for enrollment, with the waiting list serving as a hedge in case the numbers appear to be falling short.
But schools also want more students to make deposits than they have room for because inevitably there is what the industry calls “summer melt,” students who decide for whatever reason not to attend in the fall.
And then there’s the tricky question: When does an admission office turn to the waiting list? Do it too early and schools run the risk getting hit with a late influx of deposits and having to enroll too many students. Wait too long after the May 1 deposit deadline and many students on the list evaporate because they have made other commitments.
The economy has thrown much of the process into question.
In the case of URI, the university received 16,000 applications and admitted 12,000 students – about 500 more than last year. The university’s goal is to get 3,400 deposits – at $500 apiece – in order to end up with a yield of 3,150 by fall.
“You have to pay attention to a lot of balls in the air,” Bartlett said. “April is always a firestorm of activity. But it’s intense this year and people are worried.”
At Providence College, Christopher Lydon, PC’s dean of admission, provided some figures to underscore how important it is for schools to hit their enrollment marks: PC is looking to fill 1,050 freshmen slots, 65 more than last year. Figuring that the college has had around a 24 percent yield – the number of admitted students who actually attend the school – the college accepted 4,300 applicants.
That calculation doesn’t have to be off by much to be disastrous.
With tuition at about $32,000 a year, falling short by just 10 students would mean the school would lose about $320,000 in revenue, Lydon noted.
In order to compete with peer schools, PC is offering more financial aid.
Still, Lydon figures the summer melt might be more severe this year “when reality hits some families and they say ‘Oh my God, we can’t pull this off,’ ” Lydon said. “I’m holding my breath.”
Admission officials said they have found parents are uneasy, and many are looking for the cost-effective options.
Bryant University officials said parents were calling the school so frequently about financial issues that the admission office has extended its hours.
“We’ve always been known for working individually with students and families,” said Lorna Hunter, Bryant’s vice president of enrollment management. “But we’ve had to step that up more.”
Maureen Dumas, Johnson & Wales University’s dean of admission, said next year’s freshmen class at the Providence campus will be shrinking by 100 to 2,850 as part of an improvement initiative.
Yes, there is some uncertainty in enrollment, Dumas said, but the school is comfortable enough in its recruiting efforts that it has already told students on the waiting lists that they would not be getting in.
Back at URI, the recruitment continued last week with a “faculty phone-a-thon,” in which faculty members are asked to contact admitted students who have not submitted a deposit.
Meanwhile, Bonn said her staff has seen another effect of the economy as the May 1 deadline draws near: A higher number of phone calls and e-mails from families notifying URI of financial aid offers from other schools and inquiring whether URI can do any better.
“Parents are negotiating,” Bonn said. “They’re certainly wheeling and dealing.” •