The Office of Undergraduate Admissions mailed acceptance letters to 3,523 applicants seeking a spot in the class of 2012, accepting approximately 25 percent of the 14,000 applications received this year.
Despite the slight decrease in applicants from last year's overall number of 14,501 total applications submitted, Assistant Provost for Undergraduate Admission Daniel Saracino is pleased with this year's results as well as the work the Admissions Committee has put into selecting members of the Class of 2012.
"Based upon the quality of admissions, demographics, and comparison to previous years' [results], I can tell you that the projected class should be clearly the strongest academically in our history," he said.
Academic criteria for selection has remained as competitive in previous years. The average student graduating in the top 5 percent of their high school class, Saracino said. The average score on the SAT was 1400, Saracino said, and 32 on the ACT. Additionally, about 23 percent of the members of the incoming class are children of alumni, all 50 states will be represented in the incoming class, 24 percent belong to an ethnic minority background and 4 percent are international students.
Saracino was especially proud of the work that the Office of Financial Aid has done to accommodate a wider range of students in need of assistance.
"I think that it is safe to say that with what is going on with the economy, our Office of Financial Aid is totally involved and doing a great job with individual families who are concerned with the cost of education," he said. "Our need-based packages going out are going to be competitive with other universities aid packages."
Admitted students, including those who were accepted under the University's non-binding early action consideration plan, have until May 1 to accept or decline their offer of admission.
In past years, around 56 to 58 percent of admitted students chose to enroll at Notre Dame, Saracino said. In comparison to other Universities, he said, Notre Dame falls just behind other top-tier peer institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Columbia and MIT in terms of the number of admitted students who enroll.
It may be harder to gauge whether the yield figures will stay consistent this year because peer schools such as Harvard and Princeton eliminated early admissions. There might be greater uncertainty as to whether students who initially saw those institutions as their first choice schools will still consider Notre Dame come the May 1 deadline.
"[Our yield] might go down, but Notre Dame still has one of the top ten best yields of any university, and we are very optimistic about our financial aid progress and Notre Dame's strong performance as a truly national university," Saracino said.
The Admissions Committee has also offered spots on the waiting list to 1,000 applicants, Saracino said. Last year, about 175 students were selected from the waiting list, and Saracino hoped the University, "can admit these students because they are very similar academically to students admitted initially."
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions will hold open houses for admitted students on April 10, 17 and 24.
This weekend, admissions will kick off Spring Visitation Weekend for ethnic minority students from all over the U.S., followed by the Reilly Visitation weekend for the most academically talented students, Saracino said.
The newest addition to this year's admissions programs will also be the Hesburgh International Scholar's program this upcoming weekend, where 20 international students from Latin America will be invited to experience Notre Dame and stay with a current international student host, Saracino said.
