Of the 16,801 students who applied this year, only 2,541 received acceptance letters. They represent 15 percent of the pool of applicants who vied for acceptance to the Class of 2004, the lowest acceptance rate ever.
More and more students applying to Brown are finding it harder and harder to get in.
Of the 16,801 students who applied this year, only 2,541 received acceptance letters. They represent 15 percent of the pool of applicants who vied for acceptance to the Class of 2004, the lowest acceptance rate ever.
The job of admission officers has become increasingly difficult over recent years, according to Michael Goldberger, director of admission. Last year, Brown received 2,000 fewer applications for the Class of 2003, and accepted 17 percent of the pool.
"The difference this year was both the volume of the applications and the quality," said Goldberger, whose office mailed the acceptance letters April 1. "They were very, very strong ... 95 percent of the applicants would have been just great."
More than 90 percent of those accepted are in the top 10 percent of their high school class. Thirty-two percent are valedictorians; 26 percent are salutatorians. However, only 32 percent of the valedictorians who applied were accepted.
One reason for the change in the size and composition of the applicant pool was a change in Brown's early action policy, which now allows prospective students to apply to other universities as well as to Brown as long as the universities don't require a binding decision, according to Goldberger. In the past, the early action policy allowed prospective students to apply only to Brown. Under the new policy, the number of early action applicants jumped 62 percent.
The quality of high school seniors who applied early was "much stronger" than previous years, Goldberger said. The policy change may have positioned Brown to compete with Harvard and MIT for early applicants. In the past, such students may have applied only to MIT or Harvard, but this year were able to include Brown on their lists, he added.
Those who applied early had a higher admit rate - 21 percent - than the overall admit rate.
After May 1 - the deadline for students to accept Brown's offer of admission - the Admission Office can begin to evaluate whether the policy change affected the actual makeup of the class and whether it is serving Brown's best interests, Goldberger said.
Of those who received acceptance letters to the Class of 2004, women number 1,370, or 54 percent; and men, 1,171 or 46 percent. However, fewer men than women applied to this class. Men had a 16 percent admit rate, compared to a 14 percent admit rate for women.
The majority of admitted students - 39 percent - expressed interest in studying science and math, followed by 24 percent expressing an interest in the humanities; 18 percent, social sciences; 10 percent, engineering; and 9 percent, undecided.
Ten percent of the class are international students; 20 percent are New Englanders. In all, 49 states - all except South Dakota - and 61 countries are represented.
Asian Americans make up the largest ethnic group at 418 individuals, or 16.5 percent; followed by African Americans, 233, or 9 percent; Latinos, 201, or 8 percent; and Native Americans, 16, or less than one percent.
Sixty-two percent of those accepted hail from public high schools, 23 percent from private schools, 10 percent parochial schools, and 5 percent other types of schools. Forty-four percent of the accepted students attend high schools that do not rank students.
Thirty-nine percent of the accepted students were offered financial aid packages. The average award for those 1,002 students is $20,822.
The middle 50th percentile SAT scores for admitted students was between 660 and 770 verbal, and between 670 and 770 math.
Finally, 6 percent, or 163 students, are students with a relative who matriculated at Brown.