Of the thousands of high school seniors getting acceptance letters, Admissions Director Nancy McDuff hopes that 4,300 of 8,200 accepted will choose to enroll this summer and fall, about 200 fewer than last year.
``In 2000, about 50 percent of the students we admitted came here, but last year, it was 54 percent. I don't know if that was a single variation or the beginning of a trend,'' McDuff said.
Reducing 12,800 applicants down to 8,200 wasn't easy. The applicant pool has an average SAT of 1200, up roughly 10 points from last year, and a high school GPA of 3.50, compared with last year's 3.48.
Fewer blacks have applied this year than two years ago, which was the last year that affirmative action played a role in admissions decisions.
Of 1,045 high school seniors who applied, 450 have been accepted for the summer and fall. In 2000, the university had 1,593 black applicants and accepted 597.
The university scrapped an admissions policy index that considered race in some situations after the federal courts ruled that was unconstitutional.
Last fall, 43 percent of the black students accepted - 207 - actually enrolled. They made up 4.6 percent of the freshman class of 4,495 students.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/4/196447