Number of applications declines substantially

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by Chetan Kapoor

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According to Richard Stabell, dean of admission and records, Rice received 7,000 applications this year. This figure declined by 6.7 percent from last year's total of approximately 7,500 applications.

Stabell felt that the drop in the number of applications may have been due to the $25 application fee that was introduced this year.

"That's not a significant drop and I don't have a reason why. We did everything basically the same way this year as we did last year. Probably the new application fee had some bearing on that number," Stabell said.

"The drop had no effect on the quality of the accepted students. In fact, we could have accepted twice as many students as we did without a drop in quality," he added.

The money made from the application fees went into the general university fund, Stabell said. He added that "anyone who needed a waiver was granted one." He said that 275 application fee waivers were granted.

The Admission Office made about 1,700 offers of admission this year. Stabell said there were 665 spaces for the incoming class of freshmen and 65 spaces for transfer students.

"We have a target of averaging 2,600 undergraduates every semester," Stabell said. He explained that the number of spaces available for freshmen and transfers varied because of this condition.

"If you were to take the number of applicants versus the number of spaces available, it might put [Rice] among the most selective institutions in the country. In fact, it may make us the most selective," Stabell said.

He said that several factors were taken into consideration in the decision-making process, but said that the most important factor was the student's high school record. The Admission Office also laid emphasis on the non-academic qualities of its applicant pool.

"In a community like Rice where we learn from one another, we seek evidence of things students will bring to teach each other," Stabell said.

Even though a greater number of applications were received from out of state, Stabell anticipated an equal number of acceptances from Texas and from out of state. Stabell said that this was because many students choose to go to school close to home. Rice doesn't have geographical targets or quotas, Stabell said.

Stabell likened the admissions process to a "two-way street."

"The prospective students have already gone through their anxiety, now it's our turn waiting to see which and how many students will return to attend Rice," he said.

Andrew Harper, a senior at Westfield High School in Houston, said that he is "intent on going to Rice." He said he had also considered the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University and had been accepted by both institutions, but Rice is his first choice.

Jason Weiner, a senior at Bowie High School in Arlington, said that he did not think he would be joining Rice; he was accepted at Stanford University.

"The biggest reason [for not coming to Rice] was because I want to leave Texas," Weiner said.

This item appeared in the News section of the April 21, 1995 issue.

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