Record total of students applies early to UNC

Last week, the University admitted its first round of students for the undergraduate class of 2015.

But combing through the 14,018 early applications was not as easy as last year, said Steve Farmer, associate provost and director of undergraduate admissions.

That applicant pool — a 7 percent increase from last year — marked a record number of first-deadline applicants for the University.

A total of 5,104 applicants received acceptance.

Despite the University’s continued budgetary woes, Farmer said his office was able to attract that record total through increased recruiting efforts.

“We traveled a lot more this year that we did last year both across North Carolina and across the country,” he said.

Since 2005, the number of applicants to the freshman class has increased by 26 percent.

With the pending addition of the Common Application to the admission system, the University could see another increase of between 15 and 20 percent next year, said Bobbi Owen, chairwoman of the undergraduate admission advisory committee and senior associate dean of undergraduate education.

“Our challenge is going to be to provide the same level of service to all of the applicants,” she said.

Farmer said the number of applicants to UNC has been increasing in spite of recent limits to the admissions office’s capabilities.

“We’ve had to be a little choosy and we’ve had to be smarter about what we do,” he said.

“We think the changes haven’t diminished the effectiveness,” he added.

At least another 9,455 applications were received by the regular deadline, bringing the total to 23,473 applications for the 2011 school year. Last year, 23,271 applied with an acceptance rate of 32 percent. The University offered early decision — the binding option — until 2002, before administrators abolished it, citing the pressure it places on applicants.

Early applications must be submitted by Nov. 1, months before the Jan. 18 deadline for regular applications. Unlike the early decision process at other schools, students accepted under the early application are not bound to attend and do not have to declare enrollment until May 2.

Ashley Memory, senior assistant director of admissions, emphasized the flexibility of early admission.

“It’s really early notification, not an early admission program,” Memory said.

Despite the increase in applications, the expected enrollment for 2011 is 3,990, only 30 more than the enrollment for 2010.

“Our aim really is not to increase selectivity,” Farmer said. “We don’t do things here so that we can turn more people down.”

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