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[quote]
The freshmen arrived in a flood, forcing the Johns Hopkins University to reopen a defunct residence hall, lease a nearby inn and create new sections of popular math and science courses.</p>
<p>Those might sound like steps required in a robust economy, when a $54,500 annual price tag would be little impediment to students seeking a prestigious education. The twist is that all of it happened in the past three weeks.</p>
<p>Conventional wisdom held that the deep recession might push students away from expensive private schools such as Hopkins to lower-priced alternatives. Instead, the university is coping with a freshman boom.</p>
<p>A projected class of 1,235 is actually a class of 1,350 and, instead of bracing for bleak revenue numbers, Hopkins officials are scouring every nook and cranny for places to put their newest customers.</p>
<p>I would take some of the statements of wide-eyed wonderment by college officials in this article with a grain of salt. I believe there are many colleges that intentionally over-enrolled to boost revenues and now are batting their eyes innocently and saying, “oops” like it’s a big suprise. </p>
<p>It’s only logical. Why announce that you are planning to overcrowd the dorms and classrooms, when you can claim it caught you completely unaware and, uhh, sorry about those triples, guys.</p>
<p>I remember hearing this same problem when my S1 arrived at URochester four years ago. (+ 100) This September, I heard the same thing at Northwestern when S2 arrived. When the acceptance letter arrives, the student says, I’m coming!</p>
<p>A few questions: where are all these kids coming from? Which schools actually declined? And how will affect admission decisions for the 2014 class?</p>
<p>Not to be cynical, but how fortunate for them that they got more full pay students than they ‘expected.’ Also, this would suggest that they tiered the students expecting fewer full pays. Are they not suppose to be need-blind?</p>
<p>My take on “need-blind” is that is has only to do with the original admit/deny/waitlist cycle. Of course as soon as they can I’m sure these colleges figure out what it is “costing” them on paper for the class they have just admitted, to do otherwise is bad business.</p>
<p>while I too am a big cynic on cc, I’ll just point out that ALL colleges over-enroll from time to time (for a bunch of reason, including poor yeild prediction) – it’s not a first for Hopkins.</p>
<p>In Hopkins case, 100 students at full pay is an additional $5.5MM in the coffers, with only a small increase in marginal expense – how much does one student use in electricity, heat, or extra food? Hire a couple of PT adjuncts to teach Frosh and voila, nice profit.</p>
<p>This is simple - many schools fearing the worst, over-enrolled with the expectation that acceptance yield and summer melt would be worse than past history. When that didn’t happen in some quarters, you end up with a Hopkins like situation.</p>
<p>Trying to predict enrollement is tough. There is no magical formula.</p>
<p>“Many” schools, absolutely…but any of the top 20 schools that “fearing” a lower yield due to the economy are not being rational. There are just too many rich individuals around the world willing to pay full fare for a top education in the US. And, in Hopkins’ case, it’s already need-aware…</p>
<p>I think the big class at my D’s school is influenced by the economy. ( mid size public)
It is not only one of the biggest classes ever, but one of the highest scoring as well.
At least so far, I haven’t heard any horror stories about housing kids in broom closets.</p>