<p>By Emily Sachar</p>
<p>Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) – It’s about to get harder to get into Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, as both schools begin accepting the common application for undergraduate admissions. That leaves Brown University as the only Ivy League college that does not. </p>
<p>Accepting the common app, as it is widely known, generally increases the number of applicants by making the process easier. Pennsylvania, founded in Philadelphia in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin, expects the percentage of applicants admitted now to drop to 12 percent from the current 17 percent, said Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson. Columbia declined to provide comparable numbers. </p>
<p>Penn’s goal is to attract up to 2,000 low-income applicants along with the roughly 21,000 others expected to seek admission for Fall 2007, Stetson said. <code>We’re broadening our market,’’ he said in a telephone interview, with applicants who</code>because either they can’t afford it or thought they couldn’t afford it or thought the application was too tough to complete’’ didn’t apply. </p>
<p>Introduced in 1975, the common app asks students for biographical and test data, extracurricular and personal activities and family information. It requires a brief essay about a student activity and a longer personal statement. Once completed, it can be submitted electronically to as many schools as a student chooses. The common app is now accepted by 298 colleges. </p>
<p>Columbia’s director of media relations, Robert Hornsby, said the common app would be accepted <code>in the near future,’’ but he declined to provide details of the New York university’s decision to do so, other than saying,</code>It’s good for students and good for the university.’’ </p>
<p>In the U.S. News & World Report rankings of America’s Best Undergraduate Colleges, released last Friday, Penn was ranked seventh, down from fourth the year before. Columbia was ranked ninth both years. </p>
<p>Brown Considers Change </p>
<p>Brown is considering the common application but will not take it this coming academic year, said Annie Cappuccino, senior associate director of admissions at Brown, in Providence, Rhode Island. <code>It’s not possible for us to think about it seriously this year,’’ she said, in part because of a planned change to the university’s software system.</code>I don’t want to comment beyond this year.’’ </p>
<p>Pennsylvania will still allow students to submit its own application, and students who complete the common application will be required to submit supplementary material, a frequent practice among colleges that use the common app. </p>
<p>Penn will charge a $70 application fee in the coming year, typical of many colleges, whether the application is the common app submitted on line or its own forms. Requests for a waiver of the fee are considered. </p>
<p>At Harvard, which became the first Ivy League college to accept the common app 10 years ago, Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons said adoption of the common app made admission slightly more competitive for everyone, including middle- and upper-income students. He said Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had enlarged its freshman class to 1,675 from 1,630 four years ago for the entering class of fall of 2007, in part to blunt that impact.</p>