Applications are down about 5 percent from last year’s record numbers.
Director of Admissions Jeff Lantis and his team have processed over 1,950 applications so far, about 100 fewer than this time last year.
But by the time late transcripts and letters of reccomendation arrive, Lantis said he expects the total number of applications to be close to last year’s final count of about 2,200.
Lantis attributed the dip to three main factors.
“I don’t want to give U.S. News and World Report much credit, but we missed the listing this year [due to] a paperwork glitch with an organization that supplies info to U.S. News, so our absence there may have had an impact,” he said. “The national ad campaign that was run last year was not as focused on admissions. [And] certainly the economy.”
That doesn’t mean The Collegian won’t run a “smartest class ever” headline next year.
“We’re pleased with the recruiting year,” Lantis said. “We’re pleased with the quality of the applicant pool. We think that it’s better quality even though the quantity isn’t the same.”
Lantis said the success of faculty and alumni, as well as the school’s increased presence in D.C., contribute to Hillsdale’s improving reputation.
Junior Crystal Marshall, the head student ambassador, said fall visitation numbers seemed higher than in the past, but have slowed down lately, leaving student ambassadors scraping for hours. She expects those numbers to pick up again in the spring.
The college will send out its regular acceptance letters April 1, and Lantis said about 900 students will make the cut. Based on averages from the last five years, he expects about 40 percent of accepted students to make a deposit in May.
USNWR and other publications use admissions rates as a gauge for colleges’ academic rigor, a practice Lantis called potentially misleading.
“Some schools will actually go out and recruit students for the express purpose of denying them admission, to lower their admit rate and look more favorable amongst the college guides,” he said. “We don’t have the time, inclination, or manpower to want to create more unqualified applications to review. We like having a more narrow group of applications that are highly qualified.”
Admissions Counselor Shannon McCleary said her job includes re-educating prospectives about the college itself.
“We have a lot of students who say, ‘I will be the president of the United States,’” she said laughing. “I’m like, ‘Oh, the last student said that too. Guess you’re gonna be running against each other.’”
But even more students are afraid that since they aren’t politically active, they won’t fit in at Hillsdale.
“What I always try to encourage is, you don’t have to be politically active, but we want you to be aware,” McCleary said. “And the way our education is set up, you’re not just going to be aware about politics and current events, but you’re going to be aware about a lot of different areas and fields.”
