Established 1826 — Oldest College Newspaper West of the Alleghenies

MU sees increase in applicants

Amelia Carpenter

Friday, May 1 marks the last day accepted high school seniors have to confirm their enrollment with Miami University for classes in the fall.

According to Laurie Koehler, director of admission, applications to Miami have now reached a record number of 16,746, increasing 12 percent from last year. In addition, multicultural applicants increased by 24 percent and international students by 87 percent.

Koehler said she was particularly excited about the gains the university has made with applications.

"It's great that students are recognizing what a great institution Miami is," Koehler said.

Despite the state of the economy, numbers for Ohio residents and out-of-state applicants remained steady, according to Koehler.

Koehler said 50.51 percent of first-year applicants are from Ohio while the remaining 48.8 percent were out-of-state applicants and 0.69 percent of the residency is still undetermined.

According to Koehler, the biggest feeder states other than Ohio were respectively Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York and Connecticut. Internationally, the most applications came from China.

Koehler also said the quality of this year's application pool was remarkable.

"We want applications not just for the sake of applications, but from outstanding students," Koehler said. "The quality of the application pool is even stronger, which is remarkable considering a 12 percent increase."

Koehler added the Miami University Honors Program saw an increase in applications this year as well.

Miami Provost Jeffrey Herbst and Koehler said efforts put forth from faculty, staff and students in this year's admission process have helped with the increase in applications.

Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter

"At the beginning of the admissions year, we wanted to try and mobilize the entire university around the right size class and the cooperation from faculty and staff has been great," Herbst said. "Whenever we've asked someone to call or write to an applicant, we've received tremendous cooperation."

Koehler agreed.

"We've just seen unprecedented support from the university community, from faculty, from staff, from students, incredible leadership from the president and provost and others from administrative level," Koehler said. "It really takes the university community to enroll a class, (it's) so incredible to watch. My peers at other institutions are quite frankly a little bit jealous to see the participation."

All accepted Miami applicants must confirm their enrollment Friday, May 1 for fall 2009. However, the university has received numerous requests for extensions given different financial situations, according to Koehler. In addition, those international students who received their acceptances after April 15 have two weeks from the date of their offer packet to confirm, according to Herbst.

Although there have been 16,746 first-year applicants, Koehler stressed these numbers are not final and that the total number of applicants will change.

Herbst agreed numbers would not be final due to last-minute decision-making.

"The number of applications went up, right now as you can imagine, students wait shockingly till the last moment to confirm (so) numbers are changing rapidly," Herbst said.

Although Friday will provide a good estimate, the university won't know what the class of 2013 looks like for a few more weeks.

"The national deadline is May 1, but this year what we're hearing nationally is that there's likelihood that universities won't know what their classes look like," Koehler said. "People are waiting longer, requesting appeals for extensions to figure out the financial piece ... It's a really interesting climate."

Herbst said the composition of the class of 2013 would be clear after May 15.

"A tremendous amount happens in the last two weeks (of the admissions process)," Herbst said. "International students have a later deadline, get their acceptances later, involves some visa forms, as they become a more significant part of the class, the composition (becomes more clear)."

Despite the increase in applications, the enrollment rate will probably be down from last year, but the university doesn't expect problems with housing, according to Herbst.

"Our target is 3,500 students," said Herbst. "We could probably go higher and I wouldn't expect problems with housing."