Class of 2000 enrollment up

Minority representation down from this time last year

Eighty-nine percent of the college's target goal for next year's incoming class of 615 transfers and first-years had been reached as of Monday.

Last year at this time, 83 percent of the college's target goal had been reached. "We're running well ahead," Director of Admissions Debra Chermonte said.

This year, the college admitted 64 percent of its applicant pool, down eight percentage points from last year's 72 percent.

This year, for the second time in the past six years, applications for the college topped 4,000. The number of applications received rose about three percent over last year.

Chermonte said she doesn't know if Admissions will have to turn to the waitlist. Some years, a summer melt occurs, as other colleges admit students who had accepted offers to come to Oberlin.

"The good news is that we've succeeded in moving the [admit rate] down," Chermonte said.

The goal for the yield - or, percentage of admitted students who choose to attend Oberlin - is to improve it by one percentage point, said Chermonte. Last year's yield was 25 percent.

The number of minority students who have enrolled is 109, slightly behind the 118 who had enrolled by this time a year ago, according to a report prepared by Chermonte that was read at the College Faculty meeting Tuesday.

As of Monday, 27 African-American, 18 Latino, 62 Asian-American and 3 Native American students had committed to Oberlin.

Also, the SAT scores for the entering class are slightly higher than they were for the current first-year students, even when set on the same scale. The incoming class is the first admitted with a newly recentered SAT system. The average verbal score of the incoming class is 674 and the average math score is 640.

Converted to the old scale, those scores are 640 and 614, five and nine points higher than the scores for the current first-year class.

In order for the Conservatory to reach its target goal of an incoming class of 135, only four more students needed to be admitted, Chermonte said.

Improvements in the admissions picture, Chermonte said, are always due to a "collection of actions." She partly attributes the improvements in numbers to the restructuring of the All Roads Lead to Oberlin program, but also cites the Office of Admissions increased efforts to contact "the most desirable students" by e-mail or phone, reductions in the self-help component of this year's financial aid packages and increases in the scholarship component as other reasons for improvement.

All Roads is the time when newly admitted students are invited to visit campus and attend activities and informational sessions held specifically for their benefit. This year, All Roads lasted for a week rather than the traditional two days and 400 prospectives visited throughout the week. Chermonte said the All Roads length increase provided prospectives with a "much deeper look" at Oberlin.

Chermonte also said that the packet of information admitted students received contained more information, such as articles and the events calendar, than in the past.

Oberlin's increase in response rate comes at a time when most colleges around the country are experiencing a slower response than usual, Chermonte said. She said schools that rely on the FAFSA send financial aid awards later than schools, such as Oberlin, that mails awards based on the Profile system.