After tens of thousands of applications are evaluated and admission decisions are sent out, Brown’s Office of Undergraduate Admission waits to see how many students take them up on their offer. If too many students accept, it creates logistical headaches for the University. But too few, and Brown may be unable to fill classes and lose out on potential sources of tuition.
In this year’s balancing act, 65% of students who were admitted to Brown’s class of 2028 enrolled. Commonly called the yield rate, this percentage is slightly higher than that of the class of 2027.
A total of 1,725 new students joined Brown this fall out of the 2,639 that were admitted.
118 applicants were admitted from the waitlist, according to Associate Provost for Enrollment and Dean of Undergraduate Admission Logan Powell. Of those offered a spot from the waitlist, 86 matriculated. In recent years, Brown has admitted anywhere between two and 300 waitlisted students, The Herald previously reported.
The first-year class saw a 40% drop in Black enrollment and a 29% drop in Hispanic student enrollment compared to last year. In response to these new numbers, Powell reiterated Brown’s commitment to racial diversity and said that “race-neutral strategies to encourage outstanding and increasingly diverse incoming classes will remain our priority moving forward.” The University also says that it has been and will continue to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing race-based affirmative action.
Approximately half of the incoming class is determined through its early decision application process, which requires applicants to attend the University if they are accepted. This process inflates the yield rate, because nearly all students accepted in the early process enroll at Brown. 898 students were accepted early to the class of 2028.
After examining the policy last year, Brown’s Ad Hoc Committee on Admission Policies decided to maintain early decision applications, saying that students enjoy the benefit “of knowing where they will attend college without the stress and uncertainty of preparing multiple applications over many months.”
They also highlighted the benefit for the University: “Brown determines the composition of roughly half of the incoming class at a relatively early date.”
The committee acknowledged that the early decision application pool “is less diverse than the (regular decision) pool in terms of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status,” adding that it is also less likely to contain applicants from historically underrepresented groups. Polling conducted by The Herald has also found that those who apply early are more likely to have legacy status, attend private high schools and receive no financial aid.
Owen Dahlkamp is a Section Editor overseeing coverage for University News and Science & Research. Hailing from San Diego, CA, he is concentrating in political science and cognitive neuroscience with an interest in data analytics. In his free time, you can find him making spreadsheets at Dave’s Coffee.
