<p>Knox College announces "Interest in Knox on the rise: Record applications means college will be more selective" </p>
<p>As of Jan. 26, Knox college received 2,195 applications - up from 1,796 on the same date in 2006 and 1,519 in 2005. The college plans for an incoming class of around 340 students - down from the 440 students admitted this year. The surge in applications is credited to "enhanced" marketing efforts, the college's inclusion in the book "Colleges That Change Lives" by Loren Pope, as well as use of the common app. Knox is also one of the few colleges in the Midwest that is SAT or ACT optional.</p>
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"It is going to be a bit more challenging to get into Knox this year," said Steenis. "A lot more students who would have been admitted in previous years will be finding themselves on a wait-list."...</p>
<p>Coinciding with an increase in applications has been a steady rise in the number of prospective students visiting the campus in recent years. So far this year, there have been 1,691 visitors to campus, up from 1,454 in 2006 and 1,335 in 2005.
<p>This is one we're looking at for my DS (not the child of my moniker), a current junior in HS. </p>
<p>The Creative Writing program is what caught our eye Not sure if/when we'll be able to visit, since it's a bit away from any major airport (at least from what I've been able to determine) and since we come from the West Coast, we like to combine 2-3 college visits for every airport we go to.</p>
<p>I have a feeling this is one of the "hidden gems" a la College of Wooster in OH, which has accepted DD already (even though she was a RD applier).</p>
<p>Now, if only I could get the boy to have some interest in something other than the latest Nintendo system! Sigh. This kid was sent a TASP application and basically "wasn't interested." Sigh.</p>
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The college plans for an incoming class of around 340 students - down from the 440 students admitted this year.
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Say what? That can't be right. </p>
<p>BTW we visited Knox, Lake Forest, Grinnell, and Cornell College in a couple of days . Not bad at all. D liked Knox but unfortunately for us , the kids left right before we got there. :( Knox really has a nice number of foreign students and that adds a lot to the pot.</p>
<p>Curm, from what I hear, Knox 'over-enrolled' this year - and it's been a bit tight in the dorms. So maybe they're planning to even things out next year. </p>
<p>Erin's mom, this is weird, a girl I know is a freshman this year at Knox. In the writing program. And her name is -- Erin.</p>
<p>barrons - I think the numbers of apps. per student may well be a higher than that - thanks in large part to the common app. Hidden gems don't stay hidden too long these days. (collective sigh).</p>
<p>On enrollment for fall entry 2007-8:
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To keep enrollment around 1,350 students for next school year, the college is planning for an incoming class of around 340 students. This year's incoming class of around 440 students was one of the largest in the college's history.
<p>While a small LAC like Knox can be a great college for many students I really question that assessment for others, particularly those who plan on majoring in some of the sciences where the faculty in several departments number 4 or less.</p>
<p>The concern is not about S/F ratios but the depth, quality and number of upper level course offerings.</p>
<p>Students intending to enroll in a small LAC should first research its faculty resources in possible areas of study. LAC's like Williams, Colgate etc have fabulous faculty resources across the board. But others down the pecking order may not.</p>
<p>We were on the receiving end of the "intensive" marketing campaign. Although we never requested information about Knox, we were bombarded with brochures, postcards and emails from them every week. We also received about ten phone calls from Knox during dinnertime demanding to speak to my son. It got to the point where we would not answer the phone when they called. We do not know how they got email, address, or phone infomation. We provided this data to get information on a nearby CTCL college fair and we are guessing Knox got it somehow.
What bothers me so much is that they knew nothing about my son. I feel they only wanted the application so they could reject him. The marketing campaign was all about altering their statistics so that they could look more selective. Their marketing campaign was so obnoxious that even if my daughter ( a ninth grader) wants to apply, I won't let her!!!</p>
<p>My daughter goes to Knox (First year) and we never had any sort of marketing campaign aimed at us. All of our experiences with the administration were and have continued to be very positive. My daughter even stopped Roger Taylor (College President) the other day to ask him a question. The staff has been extremely friendly and helpful. And yes, this year's class is the biggest and the school had to do some creative thinking to fit everyone in. All I know is my daughter absolutely loves this college. Knox also has cooperative programs with Rush Medical and Columbia. They also have a 700 acre biological research facility. It's a small college, so yes, they don't have everything. But they have great networking...</p>
<p>knox is definitely one of my favorite safeties, along with denison and earlham. have not visited but heard many good things about the school. many great midwest schools in general have become much more selective these days especially carleton, grinnell and chicago. knox, although the acceptance rate has dropped, the stats of the students remained more or less the same so i hope i get in :)</p>
<p>Originaloog, While I totally agree with you that students need to investigate both the breadth and depth of departments they are considering, Knox actually has very decent programs in biology and chemistry for an LAC of its size, with excellent research facilities. They do not have "less than 4" faculty members in the sciences. They also have a strong pre-med placement record, and a great early admissions guarantee with Rush Medical College. I do agree with you, however, about their physics department - it is weaker than the bio and chemistry departments.</p>
<p>Hmmm. Neither of my kids have ever received phone calls for any college recruiters (albeit our home phone is set for "non-ring" but we've received no messages anyway).</p>
<p>Knox is definitely on the radar for DS because of what we've seen regarding their Creative Writing program and merit aid. I think that any and all schools can report record numbers of applicants for this year; UCLA has 50k applicants?!?!?!</p>
<p>My nephew is at Knox now in physics and going 3-2 engineering to Wash-U or RPI next year. This has been a great school for him and gave merit money.</p>
<p>My D looked at Knox because of HS councelor recomendations. We were never swamped with any mail but D developed nice tight relationship with college adcom people. interesting that on drop off day when we arrived to get keys to the dorm, almost everyone who met us mentioned our D- secretary remembered her overnight visit, admission officer mentioned some parts of her essays, another teacher raved about her portfolio- we felt like coming home instead of freshman arrival.
She is freshman at Knox and loves it. As per her freshman view- people are nice, open and friendly. People are from all over and very few leave for weekend.
D characterized her physics teacher- he really loves to teach and wants us to know physics. Coming from her, hating this subject and having hard time with it at HS is a huge compliment. She is planning to take music and/or voice lessons next trimester and knowing her it says so much to me- she NEVER sings...or had any desire to play musical instrument...
I think Knox dealt with dorm situation very admirably. Per president Roger Taylor, who is very friendly, doors open for anyone policy, Knox is not planning to grow any more and was not planning to increase their students numbers. They were delighted but somewhat did not expect such large yield from last year applicants. They utilized every resources and per my D, everybody had room. They had to do some rearrangements for this semester and some of her freshman friends moved into college appartments for reminder of the year.
All those buidlings are still very close to each other so it did not change much.
Still, Knox is not for everyone. I greatly recommend visiting such LAC like Knox, Beloit, Lawrence, Lake Forest etc. Not only you will learn about colleges but you will learn about yourself...</p>
<p>DD is a senior at Knox. She has loved her time there, but is ready to come home to California -- especially given the current cold weather. She worked for the admin office, so she may have been the source of some of those recruiting calls.</p>
<p>The campus is very tight this year -- the result of higher than expected yield -- but the admin seemed to cope well with the situation. It didn't affect my daughter much because she is living in senior apartments. She did say in an early-year phone call: "Damn, there are a lot of freshmen around here."</p>
<p>My son was accepted this year. He will most likely not be attending, but we both thought it was an excellent college when we visited. I am not surprised by Knox's popularity.</p>
<p>My son has chosen Knox for next year and in his words he "can't wait, can't wait, can't wait!" He just went to the Accepted Students Visit so hence his excitement. We didn't think he was blitzed by a media campaign. (We used to laugh at all the unique mail he received from U of Chicago - something new every week.) In fact, he didn't start talking to Knox until late Sept. We felt that the staff nicely kept us informed of what we had to do and when. </p>
<p>I'm not surprised the number of applications was up. After our October visit, we were all talking up Knox. His friends started looking in to it. There will be at least 4 students from our town's 2 high schools. That has to be a first! </p>
<p>For us, Knox was a great fit for my son's personality and interests but it was also a good fit for his parents' wallet. The other 2 on his list would have cost us $15,000 - $20,000 more per year.</p>