Colleges Are Beginning to Report Record Numbers of Applications for the Class of 2014

The blogosphere is reeling and regular posters to the University of Chicago thread on College Confidential are going nuts—applications to the Windy City’s flagship university are up by an unprecedented 42%. Under the leadership of James Nondorf, Vice President and Dean of College Admissions and Financial Aid, applications have soared to 19,306 an increase of 5,742 over 2009. “Jim Nondorf is an extremely talented and knowledgeable admissions professional,” said Julia Solomon Ensor, a local Yale alum who worked for Nondorf as an undergrad in Yale’s admissions office. “It doesn’t surprise me in the least that he’s breaking all records at Chicago.”

And so far, Chicago isn’t alone. Double-digit increases in applications are being reported all over the country. The number of students competing for spots in the class of 2014 is up by 28 percent for the California State University system, 25 percent at the University of Hawaii Manoa, 21 percent at UC Merced, 20 percent at Brown, 19 percent at Princeton, 18 percent at DePauw (and still counting), and 11 percent at Duke.

Locally, the Baltimore Sun reports that Johns Hopkins experienced a 13 percent increase in regular decision (RD) applications. But even more impressive are numbers posted by Loyola of Maryland and UMBC, which went up by 30 percent and 27 percent respectively.

Other recently-released numbers include:

• Harvard: +5%
• Dartmouth: +4%
• Cal Poly: +12.1%
• University of California Santa Barbara: +7.7%
• University of California Davis: +6.5% (transfers +26%)
• University of California Santa Cruz: +5.4%
• University of California San Diego: +2.3%
• Northwestern University: +7%
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: +3%

Stanford University reports receiving more than 32,000 applications for the Class of 2014. The Admissions Office estimates this represents and increase of between 4 percent and 5 percent over last year.

Although final numbers have not been released by other area colleges, early admissions figures suggest the trend may continue. Early Decision applications were up by 46 percent at American University, 24 percent at George Washington, 15 percent at the College of William and Mary, and 10 percent at Johns Hopkins. Nonbinding Early Action (EA) applicants increased by 18 percent at Georgetown and by 13 percent at Howard University.

As of December 1st, applications filed through the Common Application system were up by 24 percent over the same time last year. Could this have been a sign of things to come?