Photo by: Andrew Fielding
DU’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions received a record-high 14,600 applications from potential students to be chosen to make up the school’s class of 2015. Last year, 12,462 students applied.
These numbers do not account for transfer applicants.
This amount of applications for admission is 20 percent higher than last year, after the early decision and regular decision deadlines of Nov. 1 and Jan. 15, respectively, according to Todd Rinehart, the assistant vice chancellor and director of undergraduate admission.
First-year, first-time applications to DU have been growing for years now. This is due to increased efforts by the admissions office to promote the university and enrich the DU experience with new academic and campus buildings, new major offerings and a stronger push to study abroad, Rinehart said.
“We’re trying to increase and shape our class [psychographics],” said Rinehart, who has worked in the admissions office since 1997 and in his current role since 2004. “We’re trying to increase the diversity and makeup of the class – students in state, out of state, around the country and international. [We want to] enhance the geography of where the students come from.”
The class of 2015’s average SAT score is 1240. The average ACT is 28. Average GPA when applying to DU is just under 3.8.
“The type of people considering DU has really made admissions more competitive and made our degrees more valuable,” said Rinehart.
Though the admissions office has received such a large number of applications this year, its staff will continue to review every aspect of each application, including the personal essay, recommendation letter, transcript, test scores and trends in GPA over the three-plus years.
“When we look at a transcript, we’re peeling an onion back, if you will,” said Rinehart. “Not all GPAs are created equally.”
Fourteen admissions counselors will participate in the application review process, which goes from now until Feb. 22. During this time, each counselor will review about 1,000 applications.
Then, the 14 counselors plus four other essentially will lock themselves in a meeting room to conduct an extensive review of all those applicants who are on the borderline between being accepted or denied, called “The Great Debate,” according to Rinehart.
The team will review 400 to 500 files in three to four days and make their final decisions by March 2.
Acceptance letters will be sent out by March 9, after letters and scholarship packages are prepared and reviewed by staff.
“We never want to make those news stories, where schools make a mistake in sending out their admittance decisions,” Rinehart said.
DU will send acceptance letters to approximately 5,000 students, of whom about 1,200 will enroll in September.
Rinehart attributes this difference between accepted and enrolled students to various factors, including what he called the “Summer Melt” – because about 10 percent of those students accepted to DU will decide not to enroll during some point this summer. The admissions staff overadmits students in anticipation of this.
