EXTRA! DOG BITES MAN: Brown 2014 apps at 28,000-plus

[jimsonweed]

<p>New thread…New thread…Brown.edu has corrected itself.</p>

[jimsonweed]

<p>

@jackpot

The front page has been changed. It now reads “…more than 28,000 applications submitted to Brown this year.”

Oops.
To take the cynical view (since Brown had very little company in the three-day deadline relaxation), I’m guessing they were (1) very close to 28K on December 31, (2) have had “28K” up on the wall for a year as their 2014 target and epochal number (don’t ask), and (3) relaxed the deadline to meet that target (don’t ask).</p>

[jackbenimble4]

<p>

To take the cynical view (since Brown had very little company in the three-day deadline relaxation), I’m guessing they were (1) very close to 28K on December 31, (2) have had “28K” up on the wall for a year as their 2014 target and epochal number (don’t ask), and (3) relaxed the deadline to meet that target (don’t ask).

</p>

<p>When I first saw the 25,000 number, I wondered whether that included early decision applications because the sentence on the site was/is referring to the resources that WILL be needed in the future to process and evaluate the applications. Considering that 2,850 applications applied early decision, which is approximately the difference between the two numbers, maybe the website originally didn’t include those applications into the statistic?</p>

[jimsonweed]

<p>

@jackbenimble4

Considering that 2,850 applications applied early decision, which is approximately the difference between the two numbers, maybe the website originally didn’t include those applications into the statistic?

I think you’re right. And there’s precedent. A couple of years ago in April they mistakenly released the RD number as the aggregate.</p>

[tnedifnocegelloc]

<p>

@jimsonweed

I’m guessing they were (1) very close to 28K on December 31, (2) have had “28K” up on the wall for a year as their 2014 target and epochal number (don’t ask)

I won’t ask because I think I know. Something to do with the denominator if your numerator is 2780?</p>

[treeami]

<p>That just makes acceptance sweeter and possible rejection easier but ,nevertheless, still painful.</p>

[jimsonweed]

<p>

@hungryhippo1

I find it so hard to believe that they will actually have the time to read the entire application by each and every student.

Your skepticism is well founded.
The admissions staff hasn’t grown in the period (2007 to 2009) that Brown’s application number has grown by perhaps 35 percent (21K to 28K-plus). And those 19 officers were already overworked in 2007.
Their new workload will of necessity mean that new procedures have been implemented, which we may call “triage.”
The old Brown approach – which made the admissions office the most famously idiosyncratic in the country – was the “diamonds in the rough” approach. Also known as the “Brown fit” approach. And that approach resulted in the most diversely creative student body in the country from roughly 1975 to 1998.
(Today’s applicants won’t know what I’m talking about, but your parents will. The old Princeton Review subjective rankings used regularly to place Brown at number 1 in the “Hardest College to Get Into” category" – back in the day – with the peak of Brown “hotness” in the mid-1980s to early 1990s.)

@light up the sky

Not every application is read equally in-depth. They don’t read incomplete applications, and then there’s a separate pile for those with low GPA/scores, etc.

Exactly right.
The new “triage” procedure of an understaffed admissions committee involves short-shrifting the “diamonds in the rough” applicants. It instead imposes a “fast culling of the numerically measurable” approach, i.e. test scores and the like.
But this new “triage” nicely fits into the “US News driven” approach that Brown is desperately in need of, as it has seen its US News ranking plunge from 8th to 16th since the mid-1990s.
So everybody’s happy. Admissions officers employing the new “triage” can quickly cull the low-scoring apps and reduce the tall stack on their desk. And the Brown development office is happy because at long last Brown is pursuing the US News-driven strategy that worked so well for Columbia and Penn ten years ago.

@airbag

I would hope that higher SAT scores or superior academic accomplishments are more important to the admissions office than “80% more black students” accepted. It also seems sort of shallow to overtly categorize accepted students by race.

It is indeed literally “superficial” but that is the totalitarian political climate on campus these days.
However, there’s an urgent new consideration that’s entered the calculation, and you read it here (not quite) first.
In the year 2040 the United States will be majority Hispanic, Asian, and black (in that order of proportionality). By 2060 the United States will be predominately a Hispanic country, with Spanish its core broadcast, electronic, and print language.
Also, by 2040 China and Indo-Asia will have larger world influence (China by far, but Indo-Asia also) than the US.
Farsighted US universities are right now positioning themselves as pioneer solicitors of, primarily, Hispanic, Chinese, and Indo-Asian communities.
(The losers in this trend are, as ever, the African-Americans, who will fare just as badly under a Hispano-Asian majority. THe Sino-Nipponese national identity of superiority over Africans and Caucasians is axiomatic.)
Bottom line: Brown’s class of 2014 gets 9.7 acceptance rate, significantly higher standardized tests profile, more Hispanics and Asians, but also more rich Europeans.
And, to my satisfaction, more Brits (fallout from Watson), because, hey, that’s my ethnicity.</p>