Undergraduate Student Access - Cornell University Division of ...

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sity-wide focus: (a) to increase the overall numberof underrepresented minorities, (b) to encourageNational Merit Scholars to apply, (c) to highlightthe liberal arts as a central and common elementof a quality higher education, and (d) to showcasethe Cornell Commitment programs in academicexcellence, work and service, research and discovery,and leadership and learning.• Cornell distributes about 100,000 copies of a “viewbook”—alarge brochure that introduces thebreadth of the institution’s academic and studentlife programs—to first-time freshman prospects.(An additional 40,000 copies are given to transferprospects and others interested in Cornell.) Theindividual colleges also send about 35,000 unitspecificbrochures and about 85,000 “lead pieces”to prospects based on their interest in specific academicprograms. The lead pieces are less expensiveto produce and distribute, and help identify thoseprospects who are genuinely interested in Cornell.• Recruitment travel has been reorganized and refocusedaway from the traditional high school visitto off-site events. These marketing opportunitiesare held at hotels and other facilities around thecountry where students and their families participatevoluntarily, and much more actively, due totheir own interests in learning more about highereducation. Cornell has entered into partnershipswith some of its institutional peers to lower theuniversity’s cost for these events and to increasetheir visibility with target audiences.• A unique feature of Cornell’s current recruitment/admissions process is that applicants are requiredto apply directly to one of the university’s sevenundergraduate colleges (and in some cases, a specificprogram within the college). While doing soallows individuals to concentrate from the beginningof the process on their academic programs ofinterest, college-specific recruitment and admissionsintroduces a level of administrative complexityat Cornell that is not found at many of itspeers. The university has initiated a plan to allowfreshmen applicants to apply to a primary and analternate college, beginning in 2006 for those applyingfor admission for the fall of 2007.Change in the Number of Undergraduate Applications, Acceptances, and Entering Students*First-Time FreshmenTransfer Students25,0004,0003,50020,0003,000Number15,00010,000ApplicationsAcceptancesEnteringNumber2,5002,0001,500ApplicationsAcceptancesEntering5,0001,000500070 73 76 79 82 85 88 91 94 97 00 03Fall Semester Entering as Freshmen070 73 76 79 82 85 88 91 94 97 00 03Fall Semester Entering as Transfers* Entering students are those who have paid acceptance deposits and indicated an intention to enroll. Actual matriculation of enteringstudents is usually two to three percent less as some students defer enrollment or choose not to enroll for a variety of reasons.11
• Recently, the university joined the Common ApplicationTM program, which is administered bythe National Association of Secondary SchoolPrincipals on behalf of 255 participating collegesand universities. This service is utilized by five ofthe Ivy League institutions, several of Cornell’sresearch university peers, as well as many selectiveliberal arts colleges. The Common Application TMprocess, besides providing a simpler way for prospectsto apply to Cornell, allows the university toreach segments of the prospect population thathave not received viewbooks or had personal contactfrom Cornell representatives.• A subset of all prospects receive personal communicationsfrom Cornell, which take various oral andwritten forms, initiated by the university’s professionaladmissions staff, faculty, coaches, currentstudents, and alumni. An important link withalumni is provided by the Cornell Alumni AdmissionsAmbassador Network (CAAAN), a group ofover 6,000 alumni volunteers who answer questionsof local admissions candidates, accumulateadditional information about them, and provide apositive perspective on the university.• Campus visits by prospects and their families remainimportant factors in the decision-to-apply process.The central undergraduate admissions office hostsabout 10,000 campus prospect visits annually, includingscheduled and drop-in visits and plannedevents targeted for specific audiences, especiallyunderrepresented minorities. Individual collegesalso host about 5,000 unit-specific visits. (Theseare not unique counts as some prospects participatein more than one event during a single visit.)About 800 prospects take part in the Red CarpetSociety, a campus event in which prospects interactwith current students, sit in on classes, samplefood from the dining rooms, and develop a betterfeel for the Cornell environment.• Cornell uses external sources, such as consultantsand the College Board’s Enrollment PlanningService, as well as internal data to evaluate variousrecruiting approaches. For example, examiningthe relationship between the number of prospectsand applicants from a geographical area and themarketing techniques employed for that locationhas identified approaches that are more successfulin increasing the yield of targeted applicants.Recruitment, once seasonal in nature, is now a yearroundactivity. The culmination of this process is theformal application for admission by an average ofabout 21,000 of the initial 125,000 first-time freshmanprospects. As the graph at left on the bottom of page12 illustrates, the number of applicants varies fromyear to year. Applications for entrance for the fall of2005 grew significantly—to 24,444, or 17.4 percentmore than the prior year. Factors in this increase include:(a) Cornell’s use of the Common Application TMprogram; (b) a recent redesign of the undergraduateviewbook; (c) improved coordination of the admissionscommunication plan, including the expandeduse of lead pieces by the College of Arts and Sciences;(d) the high profile of many of Cornell’s programs andfaculty members; and (e) the redesign of the Cornellwebsite, which was introduced in the fall of 2004.ADMISSIONSAdmissions activities are focused on selection withinthe context of institutional academic and enrollmentpriorities. In a 1999 College Board study, authors GregPerfetto, et al. described the following “nine philosophicalperspectives encompassing…eligibility-basedadmissions models and selection models.”• Entitlement – higher education is an inalienable right andshould be made available to everyone.• Open Access – college is a natural progression after highschool and should be made available to everyone whois qualified.• Meritocracy – access to higher education is a reward forthose who have been most academically successful.• Character – access to higher education is a reward forpersonal virtue, dedication, perseverance, communityservice, and hard work.• Enhancement – the goal of higher education is to seekout and nurture talent.• Mobilization – higher education is the “great equalizer”and must promote social and economic mobility.• Investment – access to higher education should promotethe greater good and further the development of society.• Environmental/Institutional – the admissions selectionprocess is designed to meet the enrollment goals andunique organizational needs of the admitting institutionwhile promoting the overall quality of students’ educationalexperience.• Fiduciary – higher education is a business, and accessmust first preserve the institution’s fiscal integrity.12
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