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The Rice Thresher
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by Brian Stoler thresher editorial staff
Of the new students, 629 are freshmen, 12 are transfer student-athletes and 46 are other transfer students. Transfer athletes are counted separately because, like freshmen, they are guaranteed on-campus housing during their first year. But this year, despite the lack of a guarantee, every transfer student who wanted to live on campus got a room, although some college assignments had to be swapped to make that happen. The availability of housing for transfer students came about because the Admission Office hit its enrollment targets almost exactly. Rice aimed to enroll 640 new students guaranteed housing and actually enrolled 641. The number of transfer students similarly exceeded the target of 45 only by one. In recent years, enrollments have substantially exceeded the targets. For example, in 1999, the target for freshmen and transfer athletes was 635, but 672 students ended up enrolling. And in 1997, 42 more freshmen enrolled than Rice expected, causing the university to scramble to convince upperclassmen to move off campus to free up on-campus beds. Will Rice College Master Dale Sawyer, who was the chair of the Committee of Masters last semester, said this overadmitting has led the masters to reserve extra beds for new students to ensure enough available spots. "We're a little gun-shy, in a sense - we rarely plan on just having whatever the target number is." Sawyer said. "We figure we're always going to be over. "This year we were pleasantly surprised that the admissions office hit our target, and that left us with some space to house transfers." Vice President for Enrollment Ann Wright said this year they adjusted the number of offers they sent out to try to stay closer to the target. "We actually aimed for 620 and planned to use the wait list to walk up to the number that we wanted, which is what the Ivies do," she said. "That's how you're accurate. You can never hit it on the nose if you try the first time through to admit just the right number." Wright said there has been an unusually high amount of wait list activity at schools to which Rice applicants also apply. Twenty-three freshmen who accepted Rice's offer of enrollment and gave a deposit later chose to go elsewhere after being offered a spot from another school's waiting list. To compensate for this "summer melt," as Wright termed the phenomenon, Rice offered admission to members of its waiting list. In all, 37 freshmen enrolled after being offered admission from Rice's waiting list. The percentage of students who accepted an offer from Rice declined slightly from last year. This year's yield was 40 percent, compared to last year's yield of 41 percent. Wright attributed this decline to an increase in the number of out-of-state students offered admission to Rice, since the yield for out-of-state students tends to be lower than the yield for in-state students. This year, 50 percent of freshmen are from outside Texas, compared to 44 percent last year. Also declining slightly this year was the percentage of freshmen from some ethnic minority groups. Five percent of this year's freshmen identified themselves as "African American or Black," down from eight percent last year. Also, 11.5 percent of this year's entering class identified themselves as Hispanic, down from 13 percent last year. Wright said that the decline in diversity was caused by other schools seeking out minority students from Texas. "We are slightly less diverse this year due to increased competition from out-of-state colleges that are recruiting Texas minorities very aggressively, in many cases with special scholarships," she said.
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