Great news, everyone! The new admissions website worked: not only was Wesleyan able to maintain its 35% increase in the early admissions pool from last year, but the pool as a whole is also more geographically and economically diverse than last year’s.
This is especially impressive feat given the effect the financial crisis has had on the early decision pools of Wesleyan’s peer institutions: while Bowdoin’s ED pool went up 5%, both Williams’s and Yale’s pools decreased, and Brown’s ED pool increased slightly from its precipitous drop last year. This is bound to have a positive impact on Wesleyan’s reputation, and while some students scoff at the supposed arbitrariness rankings, it can actually improve educational and employment opportunities for Wesleyan graduates in the coming years.
Our successful ED admissions effort will not just affect graduates, though. Since, according to Greg Pike, the ED pool is usually much less diverse than the regular decision pool, the fact that 36% of Wesleyan’s accepted early decision candidates will receive financial aid and the pool is more geographically diverse than last year’s is especially significant. The admissions office success in attracting diverse candidates even in our early decision pool makes us optimistic about the the composition of the next Wesleyan class.
In addition, it is admirable that the administration is making such concerted efforts to increase the diversity of the early decision pool, since many of Wesleyan’s peer institutions are starting to eliminate their early decision programs because of the historical lack of diversity among early decision candidates.
One of the reasons for the administration’s success lies in one of their policies concerning financial aid. Greg Pike stated that if something goes wrong with the financial package of a student accepted through the early decision program, the student does not have to attend. This policy is the testament to the University’s dedication to attracting diverse applicants.
As much as many students deride the ridiculous statements on the admissions website, the office’s success in attracting an excellent early admissions pool shows that the administration is committed to maintaining the diversity that Wesleyan students are proud of. It’s comforting to see some agreement about what Wesleyan should be.
Leave a Reply