In an era in which universities are expected to draw more and more applicants each year — as if they were Fortune 500 companies being forced to show annual profits — Ursinus College, a liberal arts institution outside of Philadelphia, would seem to have little reason to celebrate this year.
Applicants for this fall’s freshman class have plunged by 1,700 — or nearly a third — when compared with last year at this time.
And yet, Richard DiFeliciantonio, the university’s vice president of enrollment, said in an interview on Monday that the drop was not only welcome but deliberate, after a five-year period in which Ursinus saw its applications nearly triple.
“You know as well as I that those numbers aren’t real,” Mr. DiFeliciantonio said by phone from the school’s campus in Collegeville, Pa. “People count anything that moves as an application. Everyone is going up 10 percent every year for 20 years. It’s absurd.”
“At some point,” he added, “the credibility of those numbers is questionable.”
Mr. DiFeliciantonio readily admits that Ursinus, until this year, was only happy to let itself be swept up in the admissions arms race.
Like a baseball player choosing to bulk up on steroids, Ursinus came to the conclusion in 2005 that it needed to get bigger.
Specifically, the college wanted to increase its freshman class by about 100 — to just under 550 — in part to bring in students who might fill classes in new disciplines like biochemistry, environmental studies and the performing arts.
To do so, Mr. DiFeliciantonio hired a direct-marketing firm from Virginia called Royall and Company, and its initial recommendations were that Ursinus waive its $50 application fee and its essay requirement. The results were immediate: in one year, from 2005 to 2006, applications to Ursinus more than doubled, to 4,413, from 1,725. Two years later, they grew yet again, by another 40 percent, to 6,179.
To the outside world, Ursinus was suddenly red-hot in popularity. While emphasizing that Royall had done exactly what Ursinus had asked it to do, Mr. DiFeliciantonio said he had become increasingly uneasy with the shaky foundation on which the school’s growth was built.
Mr. DiFeliciantonio’s main concern was that every year Ursinus received more of Royall’s “fast track” applications and offered admission to more applicants, but the percentage who accepted the offer — known as the yield — went down steadily. For example, in 2005, the year before it brought on Royall, the yield was about 30 percent — meaning that of the 1,290 high school seniors offered admission, about 420 enrolled.
But by last year, the yield figure had plunged to 13.5 percent.
“That meant almost 87 percent we admitted weren’t going to come,” Mr. DiFelciantonio said.
So how did Ursinus manage to consciously slim down this year?
For one thing, it ended its relationship with Royall last spring. For another, it restored the essay questions to its application, including one that asked applicants to respond to the Mark Twain quotation, “Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.” Applicants were also required this year to submit a high school term paper graded by one of their teachers — the better for Ursinus to verify that the applicant’s writing elsewhere in the application was genuine.
In other words, Ursinus has become that rare college that has made it harder for students to apply — and thus ensuring that those who submit applications are more likely to consider attending if accepted.
Sometimes when a college’s stream of applications slows, its ranking can suffer in U.S. News, the publication that drives at least some of the arms-race mentality. Ursinus says its ranking never really ticked up much during its recent boom — it has tended to hover around No. 70 among national liberal arts institutions, Mr. DiFelicantonio said — but it is now willing to take a hit in those standings, if that means saving the time of applicants and admissions officers alike.
“We’ve taken a bit of a leap,” said Mr. DiFeliciantonio, adding that he was unaware of another college that had taken a similar step, at least not in recent years. “I hope our yield pops up, ideally to 16-17 percent. If it does, we’ll have a class of about 460.”
“And that,” he added, “would be just fine.”
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