{"id":100529,"date":"2015-02-25T10:33:47","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T15:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=100529"},"modified":"2015-03-10T09:10:08","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T13:10:08","slug":"for-uconn-another-year-of-record-high-applications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2015\/02\/for-uconn-another-year-of-record-high-applications\/","title":{"rendered":"For UConn, Another Year of Record High Applications"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A prospective student views the UConn Admissions webpage. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UConn is the place to be \u2013 at least according to more than 34,000 high school students, the largest number of applicants ever to seek a spot in the next fall\u2019s freshman class.<\/p>\n

That pool of potential freshmen \u2013 34,019 to be exact \u2013 met the Jan. 15 application deadline to compete for about 3,500 spots at Storrs and about 1,400 at the Hartford, Stamford, Waterbury, Avery Point, and Torrington campuses.<\/p>\n

The applications represent an increase of almost 9 percent over last year, and the average SAT score of the applicants is 13 points higher than last year\u2019s. The percentage of applicants from minority backgrounds \u2013 not including international students \u2013 also is at its highest point ever, around one-third of the entire applicant pool.<\/p>\n

Decision letters will go out for mailing Friday, so students will learn early next week whether they\u2019ve been selected as part of UConn\u2019s Class of 2019.<\/p>\n

UConn’s numbers counter trends<\/strong><\/p>\n

The jump in UConn applications runs counter to national and regional trends, in which declines in the number of high school graduates have caused many universities to see their applications and enrollments level off or decrease.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe University has tremendous momentum and continues to build on that, and high school students and their families are noticing,\u201d says Nathan Fuerst, UConn\u2019s director of admissions. \u201cThey want to be part of something special, and they\u2019re seeing the opportunity to do that as a student here at UConn.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the population of potential applicants to universities nationwide is declining, a presentation made to UConn\u2019s Board of Trustees on Wednesday shows the University is capturing a larger and more talented piece of that shrinking pie.<\/p>\n

Wayne Locust, UConn\u2019s vice president for enrollment management, told trustees that applications and enrollment in special initiatives \u2013 such as STEM programs and the Honors Program \u2013 have been consistently strong, and are maintaining that momentum this year.<\/p>\n

In fact, more than 17,000 of the approximately 34,000 applicants this year are seeking to major in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math), up 32 percent in just the last four years.<\/p>\n

The increase in applications also comes as UConn is investing in\u00a0new faculty in critical areas, updating its academic plan, and implementing the\u00a0Next Generation Connecticut\u00a0initiative to revolutionize its STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curricula.<\/p>\n

Reputation helps attract the best candidates<\/strong><\/p>\n

UConn\u2019s reputation for academic excellence, value, commitment to the environment, and service have been recognized by several outside entities in recent years, all of which also are thought to be contributing to the upswing in applications.<\/p>\n

UConn has held strong spots each year on the Kiplinger\u2019s Personal Finance\u2019s list of 100 best values in public colleges, and consistently is a Top 25 institution\u00a0on the annual U.S. News & World Report\u2019s ranking of the best public universities.<\/p>\n

University officials also have been more aggressively reaching out directly to talented students statewide and nationally who may be good candidates for UConn.<\/p>\n

The numbers are particularly gratifying when considering the landscape of secondary education, in which the U.S. is seeing declines in its number of high school graduates after a significant period of growth.<\/p>\n

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education\u00a0found in a\u00a0study\u00a0that graduating classes are predicted to consistently decline nationwide and particularly in the Northeast, matching the drop in birthrates that began with the 2007 recession.<\/p>\n

As a result, its report says, \u201cPostsecondary institutions will likely face greater competition for fewer recent high school graduates because of absolute declines in the size of that group.\u201d<\/p>\n

But UConn has been bucking that trend. While this year\u2019s 34,019 applications from aspiring UConn freshmen are a new record, the numbers have increased steadily since 2001, when the University received about 13,600 applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re especially pleased to see that the application pool this year is not only larger, but also very diverse and high achieving,\u201d Fuerst said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrawing an applicant pool of this quality is the sum of many things: our improved rankings in recent years, the increased recruitment efforts, the investments in Next Gen and key academic programs \u2013 and of course we\u2019re also proud of the widespread attention that national championships bring in helping to draw student interest in learning more about us.\u201d<\/p>\n

A limited number of aspiring students who auditioned for UConn\u2019s School of Fine Arts or applied to a two-year associate degree program in the Ratcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture already received decisions on their applications, as have those who applied directly to enroll in UConn\u2019s regional campuses.<\/p>\n

UConn will continue to accept applications for those regional campuses at Avery Point, Greater Hartford, Stamford, Torrington, and Waterbury until July 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Applications to the Class of ’19 set records in quantity and quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":88294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[124],"class_list":["post-100529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 11:32:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100529"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100617,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100529\/revisions\/100617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/88294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100529"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=100529"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=100529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}