4/1/08 Cornell Sun: "Asian Community Center Plan Discussed at Forum": The Asian student population has risen from just 4.5 percent in 1980 to 17.7 percent in 2007.  

4/1/08 The Dartmouth: "College admits 2,190 applicants,"
By Anya Perret
    Admissions to the Class of 2012 were the most selective in Dartmouth 's history - the College accepted just 13.2 percent of applicants, down from last year's record 15.3 percent, the Admissions Office announced Monday. The College received a record 16,536 applications for admission into the Class of 2012 - 2,361 more applications than were submitted for the class of 2011.
    Dartmouth offered admission to 2,190 of the applicants for the class of 2012, 400 of which were offered spaces during the early admissions process, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris '84.
    Admitted members to the Class of 2012 also set academic records, with 93.4 percent ranking in the top 10 percent of their secondary school's graduating class, as opposed to last year's 91 percent. Of those admitted, 38.5 percent are valedictorians, and 11.3 percent are salutatorians. The mean SAT scores for admitted students are 726 Verbal, 731 Math and 726 Writing.
    Within the Class of 2012, 43 percent, 944 students, identify as students of color, the largest number and highest percentage in the College's history.  The Class of 2011 held the previous record, at 41 percent, although only 33 percent of students that chose to matriculate identify as students of color, Laskaris said.
    In this year's pool of accepted students, 403  [18.4%] identify as Asian-American; 224 [10.2%] identify as African-American; 216 [9.9%] identify as Latino; 82 [3.7%] identify as Native American and 19 [0.9%] identify as multi-racial.
    Representing 59 nations, 178 international students make up 8 percent of the admitted students. The Class of 2011 is 9 percent international students.

 

4/1/08 Harvard Gazette: “A record pool leads to a record-low admission rate,” 
    A record applicant pool of 27,462 has led to an admission rate of 7.1 percent, the lowest in the history of Harvard College . Traditional admission letters (and e-mails) were sent on March 31 to 1,948 students. Last year 2,058 applicants were admitted from a pool of 22,955. 
    This year's applicant pool reflects the level of excellence typical of recent years. For example, over 2,500 scored a perfect 800 on their SAT critical reading test; 3,300 scored 800 on the SAT math; and over 3,300 were ranked first in their high school classes. 
    A record 11 percent of admitted students are from African-American backgrounds, 18.5 percent are Asian American, 9.7 percent are Latino, and 1.3 percent are Native American.

4/2/08 Stanford Daily: “Room to remain for transfers- Stanford to accept transfer applicants despite halting of  process at Harvard, Princeton , “
    Director of Admission Shawn Abbott said a racial breakdown of the admitted class at Stanford - a record-low 9.5 percent of the 25,298 applicants - could not be provided to the public.  "We never release any racial breakdowns of the admitted freshman class," he said. "It has been the University's long-standing policy not to do this."
    [Translation: "We are Bigots for the Left.  We are discriminating against Asian Americans and we don’t want to release statistics which would make our illegal actions obvious.”]
    Abbott did say that well over half of the 2,400 admits were students 
of color. The Office of Admission also announced in its Friday 
statement that 431 accepted students will be the first in their families to attend a four-year college or university.



3/28/08 Swarthmore College: "Swarthmore Admits 929 Students to Class of 2012- 15%  Accepted from Record Pool of 6,118 Applications,"
    Swarthmore College has sent letters of admission to prospective members of the Class of 2012. A total of 929 students have been accepted-15 percent of the record 6,118 who applied.  Based on previous admissions patterns, Swarthmore expects this group of admitted students to yield a first-year class of about 370 for next fall.
    Fifty-three percent of all accepted students identify themselves as domestic students of color. Latino/a students make up 19 percent of the admitted class; Asian Americans 18 percent; and, African Americans, 15 percent. Four students self identify as Native American.

4/14/08 press release, www.universityofcalifornia.edu:
    UC admitted a record number of freshman students for the fall 2008 term. 
A total of 60,008 California high school seniors were offered admission, a 4.7 percent increase of admitted students (+2,690) over the fall 2007 term (57,318). Overall, 75.3 percent of fall 2008 California freshman applicants have been offered admission to the university, compared with 77.4 percent for fall 2007. The decline in the admissions rate is attributed to the fact that the growth in the number of applicants outpaced the growth in the number of admissions offers. The university will offer a space to every California resident applicant who is UC-eligible.
    Nearly 9 out of 10 admitted students are California residents. Admissions offers to out-of-state and international students numbered 7,545, an increase of over fall 2007 (6,283), and bringing the total number of applicants offered admission to the fall term to 67,553 students. 
    Universitywide, the admission of Chicano/Latino students increased by 16 percent, followed by African-American students (11.3 percent), white students (1.2 percent) and Asian-American students (0.7 percent) compared with fall 2007 outcomes. The increase in admissions offers closely track the increases of each group in the applicant pool. The percent of American Indian students decline slightly (-2.6 percent), or 11 fewer admits than fall 2007. The percentage of students who declined to state their ethnicity increased 12.3 percent from the previous year.
    Underrepresented students -- African Americans, American Indians and Chicano/Latinos make up 25.1 percent of UC admits, up from 22.9 percent for fall 2007. All campuses registered gains in the proportion of underrepresented students in their admitted class.
    Universitywide, UC continues to excel at offering opportunity and access to students from families that have traditionally not enjoyed the benefits of higher education. Just over 39 percent of freshman admits come from families where neither parent has a four-year degree, 36.8 percent come from low-income families, and 1 out of 5 admitted students is enrolled in a high school that is in the lower 40 percent of California high schools, as ranked by the Academic Performance Index (API) score.
    Note: The admissions outcomes are preliminary and focus entirely on admission of freshman applicants. Transfer admissions data will be available mid-May. These data reflect admission as of March 31, 2008, and except as noted, are for California resident students only.
    Some campuses will continue to admit small numbers of applicants.  Unless otherwise noted, the universitywide totals are "unduplicated," meaning that each student is counted only once. Data provided for individual campuses typically 
reflect multiple admissions offers; on average, fall 2008 freshman applicants applied to 3.6 UC campuses. In making year-to-year comparisons, note that the fall 2004 cycle was anomalous because state budget difficulties resulted in a reduction in the number of students UC was able to admit.
    For more information and tables about 2008 freshman admissions to UC:
www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/fall2008adm.html 
    For individual campus admissions data:
    UC Berkeley
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/04/14_admissions08.shtml>
    UC Davis
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8513 
    UCLA
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-admissions-data-show-high-48543.aspx 
    UC San Diego
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/general/04-08FreshmenAdmissionsData.asp 
    UC Santa Barbara
http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=1756 

4/14/08 press release: "Campus releases freshman admission data,"
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/04/14_admissions08.shtml
By Janet Gilmore
    Berkeley - University of California , Berkeley, officials today announced that they have offered admission to 12,616 high school students for the 2008-2009 school year, following an exceptionally competitive admissions cycle propelled by a marked increase in applications.

4/14/2008 press release: "UCLA Violates Proposition 209; Holistic Review Reduces Percentage of Asian American Students Admitted,"
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-admissions-data-show-high-48543.aspx
By Claudia Luther
    UCLA, the most popular campus in the nation, with 55,397 freshman applicants, announced today that it had admitted 12,579 prospective freshmen for fall 2008. Of these students, 18.1 percent, or 2,164, were underrepresented minorities - a 1.5 percentage-point increase over last year.
    The number of African American freshmen admitted rose to 440 (3.7 percent), up from 407 (3.5 percent) last year, while the number of Latino/Chicano admitted freshmen increased to 1,682 (14.1 percent), from 1,474 (12.7 percent) in 2007. Native American freshmen numbered 42 (0.4 percent), compared with 45 (0.4 percent) last year.
    This is the second consecutive year that UCLA has used a "holistic" process for evaluating applications, in which each application is read and considered in its entirety by two trained readers; in previous years, two readers reviewed student academic records while a third reviewed life challenges and other personal achievements. The UCLA Academic Senate made the change because the faculty believed a more individualized and qualitative assessment of each applicant's entire application would better achieve the University of California Regents ' goal of comprehensive review.  The holistic approach emphasizes students' achievements in the context of opportunities available to them and how students have taken advantage of those opportunities.
    Reflecting an increase in the overall number of applications, the university was able to admit 22.7 percent of all those who applied, compared with 23.6 percent last year. The university expects a class of approximately 4,700 to begin their studies in September.
    Academically, UCLA's admitted freshmen were again very strong. The overall grade-point average was 4.34, compared with 4.29 last year. The average composite score for the SAT reasoning test remained steady at 2,000, out of a possible 2,400. The average math score was 683, the average reading score was 653 and the average writing score was 664 - all approximately what they were last year. Admitted freshmen took an average of 19.9 honors courses and completed nearly 50.9 college preparatory semester courses - far above the minimum of 30 that is required.
    Of the admitted students, 4,804, or 40.2 percent, were Asian American, a drop of 2.6 percent from last year.  Asian Americans made up 42.8 percent (4,975) of the admitted freshman class in 2007, 45.6 percent (5,390) in 2006, 42.5 percent (4,710) in 2005 and 42 percent (4,049) in 2004.
    The percentage of whites/Caucasians was approximately the same as last year: 33.1 percent (3,953), compared with 33.2 percent (3,860) in 2007. That compares with 32.1 percent (3,791) for 2006, 33.6 percent (3,723) for 2005 and 33.5 percent (3,230) for 2004.
    In other categories, admissions data show that 7.4 percent (885) of admitted applicants declined to state their race or ethnicity and that 1.2 percent (138) identified themselves as "other."
    Information about admitted California freshmen at University of California campuses is available at www.ucop.edu/news/factsheets/fall2008adm.html. More than 60,000 high school seniors were offered admission at UC campuses.
    UCLA is California 's largest university, with an enrollment of nearly 37,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The UCLA College of Letters and Science and the university's 11 professional schools feature renowned faculty and offer more than 300 degree programs and majors. UCLA is a national and international leader in the breadth and quality of its academic, research, health care, cultural, continuing education and athletic programs. Four alumni and five faculty members have been awarded the Nobel Prize.
    NOTE: Fall 2008 figures are extracted from March 31 files and do not reflect final figures. The data used reflect information about domestic students, except for the total numbers of applicants and admits, which include international students. This year's figures are compared with official data from 2007. Admissions numbers will change slightly, with final official data available in October 2008. Data provided by the University of California Office of the President are for California residents only.

4/2/08 The Daily Pennsylvanian: "Admit rate increases to 16.4 percent- Penn only Ivy thus far to not set a record-low acceptance rate, admits 3,769 students,”
By Naomi Jagoda
    In contrast to the other Ivy League schools, Penn's overall acceptance rate increased to 16.4 percent for the class of 2012.  Penn is the only Ivy League school thus far that has not reported a record-low acceptance rate.
    This admissions cycle, Penn admitted a total of 3,769 of 22,922 applications. Last year, 22,646 students applied and 3,628 were accepted - a rate of 16 percent.
    Average SAT scores increased this year from 2137 to 2153 out of a possible 2400.
    More minority students were accepted this year.  The number of black students admitted went up from 422 to 432, the number of Latino students accepted increased from 311 to 355 and the number of Asian-American applicants accepted increased from 769 to 851.  There was a decrease in the number of Native-American students admitted, down from 20 last year to 15 this year.

4/8/08 Austin American-Statesman:  “UT sued for considering race in admissions Rejected student, who is white, contends university discriminated,”
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
    The University of Texas is violating the Constitution and civil rights laws by considering race and ethnicity in deciding whether to admit undergraduates, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court Monday by a white student whose application was rejected.
    The plaintiff, Abigail Noel Fisher, 18, lives in Richmond , southwest of Houston , and attends Stephen F. Austin High School in nearby Sugar Land . Despite ranking in the top 12 percent of her class, scoring 1180 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT, and playing the cello, she was rejected last month by UT, says the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Austin .
    UT and other public universities in Texas are required by state law to accept any student from Texas who ranks in the top 10 percent of his or her high school.
    UT considers race and ethnicity, among other factors, in deciding whether to admit other students as part of its effort to boost enrollment of Hispanics and blacks.
    "But for her race and ethnicity, it is our belief she would have been admitted to the University of Texas ," said Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, a legal-defense group that fights the use of race and ethnicity in public policy.
    The group, based in Washington , is underwriting part of the litigation costs, and Fisher's lawyer, Bert Rein, is contributing some of his services for free, Blum said.    
    The lawsuit contends that UT has run afoul of a 2003 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving the University of Michigan that said race and ethnicity could be considered under certain circumstances. Fisher's suit argues that affirmative action is allowed only after race-neutral approaches are found inadequate.
    Patti Ohlendorf, UT's vice president for legal affairs, said the school's admissions policies comply with Supreme Court precedent and applicable laws.
    "Each year, we are very fortunate to receive applications from thousands of very able high school seniors. But as with many universities around the country, we are limited in the number of applicants we can admit," she said.
    This isn't the first time UT's admissions policies have been challenged in court. A 1996 federal court ruling involving UT effectively banned affirmative action at public colleges and universities in Texas .  That prompted state lawmakers to enact the top 10 percent law in 1997.
    After the Supreme Court's Michigan ruling, UT resumed considering race and ethnicity in admissions. UT officials contend that the top 10 percent law hasn't done enough to boost minority enrollment and have asked lawmakers to scale it back, saying that would allow them to enroll more minority students.
    Fisher's lawsuit asks the court to end UT's consideration of race and to order that she be admitted if she qualifies under race-neutral factors.
    Blum, a 1973 graduate of UT and a part-time Austin resident, said hundreds of other students have been unfairly rejected, and he urged them to join the case.