<p>Today I had the pleasure of speaking with President Sullivan. He makes it a point to call parents of accepted alumni children. That's a pretty cool thing to do and he's a very real, and fun guy to speak with, a terrific leader for a college campus. He really "gets" kids too.</p>
<p>What I also wanted to share was that he said SLU's acceptance rate this year was 44%. This represents a significant change. He also said the college visits went up 20%, so they believe that the increase in applicants is also attributed to a solid increase in interest in the school. As he said, "to visist SLU, you have to want to check the school out because Canton isn't exactly on the way to anywhere else."</p>
<p>Accepted students should feel very proud of their accomplishments.</p>
<p>44% is great! It had been around 75% for years. Maybe it will help dispel the "party image" of the school.
One has to be careful with this stat, tho. Admission folks can use it to mean "% of applicants who were accepted", as well as "% of acceptees who chose to enroll". Big difference.</p>
<p>In this case, there were applications of close to 5,000 with intentions of enrolling a class of ~580. In the past SLU has had a yield (accepteees who chose to enroll) of 30-33%. </p>
<p>Having spent significant time at many schools over the past 2 years, the "party image" of any school should be seriously taken with a grain of salt. At any school, if folks want to drink, they will find a way (check out recent Dartmouth's You-tube Drinking promo) the important point to recognize is that there are plenty of choices the university offers and people make other than partying. I know at SLU, the fraternity life has seen a big refocusing and thus can not be seen as a center of partying either.</p>