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School of Nursing accepts 24 percent of applicants after 2011 decision to reduce enrollment

The effects of last year’s budget cuts to the School of Nursing were revealed with the release of the school’s admissions decisions Wednesday.

The nursing school sent acceptance letters to only 96 undergraduate students out of a pool of 400 applicants — accepting 64 fewer students than last year, said Katherine Moore, director of admissions and student services at the school.

In an effort to maintain program quality in the face of decreased funding, the school decided last year to reduce enrollment by 25 percent, Moore said.

To speed up the reduction process, the school now admits students only once a year rather than twice, putting all the pressure into one round of decisions.

“This is the first cycle of the once-a-year pattern, so this was a much larger number of acceptances than either cycle last year,” Moore said.

“But that was expected.”

Overall, only 24 percent of this year’s applicants were admitted, versus 33 percent in each of the past two years.

The decreased program size has made the selection process even more difficult for the admissions committee, said Beverly Foster, director of the undergraduate program in the School of Nursing.

“It’s a very difficult decision for faculty,” Foster said.

“They spend a long time making the decision so that we end up with a class that is academically talented, has a variety of skills and experiences and is dedicated to service. It’s not just about academics,” she said.

While turning away students is not easy, it is better than accepting more students and overstretching the program’s budget, Moore said.

“It would be our hope that we could restore enrollment to previous levels,” she said.

“We need nurses all over this country, and the more that we can produce in a quality fashion, the better for society it is.”

But one benefit of the smaller size is that is has made prospective students work even harder, applicants said.

“I spent a lot more time on the essay part of the application because that was the part I knew I could change,” said Kasey Huffman, a sophomore who was just accepted to the program.

The competitive application process, while stressful, made the acceptance that much more gratifying, said Brooke Foster, who was also accepted.

“I have always wanted to be a nurse,” she said.

“Getting in was a better feeling than even getting into UNC.”

Contact the University Editor at university@dailytarheel.com.

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