A snapshot of incoming students

by Kristen Cole

• Brown will welcome 1,469 first-year students in September, selected from a pool of 15,286 applicants. The overall admit rate for the Class of 2008 is 16.6 percent, and for early decision applicants, 29 percent.

• Women account for 52 percent of the incoming class, 764 women to 705 men.
• The class includes 162 high school valedictorians - culled from 1,045 who applied - and 73 salutatorians from the 491 who applied.
• Although more than 7,000 students applied from schools that do not provide rank, 6,173 students who applied were in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.
• Ninety percent of matriculating students were in the top 10 percent of their class.
• All 50 states and 39 countries are represented in the Class of 2008. Foreign citizens make up 7 percent of the first-year population.
• Five percent of the students - 71 in all - are from Rhode Island.
• Twenty-nine percent of the entering students in the Class of 2008 are students of color. Ten percent of the students did not indicate their ethnicity. Among those who did, 14 percent are Asian American, 8 percent are Latino American, 7 percent are African American, and 1 percent is Native American.
• Thirty-seven percent of the incoming students intend to study math and science; 23 percent, the humanities; 19 percent, social sciences; and 9 percent engineering. Twelve percent are undecided.
• The majority of students hail from public schools. Fifty-five percent are public high school graduates, 35 percent are private school graduates and 7 percent parochial school graduates.
• The Graduate School received 5,574 applications as of June 1. The school offered admission to 945 of those applicants, and 387 students accepted the offer to matriculate.
• Of the total number of Graduate School applicants, 637 are minority students. One hundred and forty minority students were offered admission; 52 will matriculate.