Admins Report Rise in Applicants

During a nation-wide wave of early-acting students The New School is reporting an increase in undergraduate applications. However, New School administrators say that it is too early to link the two.

As of November 16, The New School reported a 15 percent overall increase in undergraduate applications as compared to the same time last year. Lang alone showed a large 65 percent increase in overall applications. Though early decision at Lang has been an option at The New School for some time, early action was only implemented at Parsons last year. Christopher Ferguson, vice president of admissions at The New School, said that it was too early to make any correlation between the increases in applications and the implementation of the policies.

A recent survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACA), showed 65 percent of institutions are reporting increases in early decision applications while 73 percent are reporting increases in students accepted through early action. A student that commits to “early decision” enters into a binding contract in which, if accepted, they must attend the institution. “Early action” is slightly more flexible, giving the opportunity to commit immediately or wait until the spring semester. Though The New School deadline for early action and decision was November 1, before the current statistics calculated on November 16, Ferguson said that much more time is required before a trend can be identified.

“Admissions would like to get three years worth of data to allow us to analyze two years of change,” Ferguson said. “That would give us the information to allow us to make decisions and evaluate the effectiveness of those programs.” For example, last year there were 16 percent fewer New School undergraduate applications than in 2008. Therefore, 2010’s increase partially compensates for last years loss and doesn’t clearly indicate a notable rise.