As of January 5, 128 of 266 Phillips Academy Seniors who applied early to college received good news: that they had been accepted. The number of early applications increased by approximately 30 percent from last year, despite expectations from some admissions officials that early application numbers would drop due to the economic downturn. Andover students in the class of 2009 submitted 266 early applications, compared to 206 applications from the class of 2008. Among their favorites were Single Choice Early Action programs at Yale, where 15 of 39 PA applicants were accepted, and Stanford, where 9 of 22 were admitted. John Anderson, Director of College Counseling, said, “Our sense is that…[the economy] hasn’t played a role. While the students who apply early are a diverse group of students, they tend to be a little bit more well off than students who are in the general applicant pool.” However, Anderson says that the economy may affect the philosophy of the College Counseling Office in upcoming years. Anderson said that in the future, college counselors may discourage students from applying Early Decision, which is binding, if they are not completely sure that they can afford it. This year’s early acceptance rate of 48 percent acceptance rate is lower than last year’s rate of 50 percent. But the currently unknown statuses of 46 applications may affect Andover’s acceptance rate. An application’s status is classified as unknown if the college has not sent out their decision letters yet or if the applicant has not reported the outcome of their application to the College Counseling Office. The number of applications to Yale University, which has a restrictive Early Action program, rose significantly this year to 39 applicants, up from 27 in 2008. Kevin Ofori ’09, and his twin brother Kyle Ofori ’09, were both admitted early to Yale, accounting for two of the 15 accepted applicants. However, the brothers have applied to other schools in order to keep their options open and in hope of distancing themselves from one another in college. “We’re still trying to get as far away from each other [as possible]. Our plan is to become more and more independent as time goes on,” Kyle said. More Andover students applied to Stanford University this year, but the acceptance rate decreased by about 10 percent. In 2008, Stanford accepted eight out of 15 Andover applications. In 2009, nine out of 22 applications were accepted. Anderson does not believe that the increase in applications to Stanford affected the acceptance rate. Anderson said, “None of these schools really would have quotas, none of them will state as a general premise, ‘We want no more than 12 PA kids.’ …I think they do a good job of really assessing who that person is and thinking about which of those students best fit what they’re looking for in their environment.” Alexander Cope ’09 was accepted early to Stanford University. Because Stanford offers non-binding Early Action, Cope also applied to other schools. Cope said, “I still applied to seven other schools because of financial aid. If I can get a full scholarship to a school then that’s great and I might go there. It’s almost become the top reason why I might go to one school versus another.” This year, early acceptance rates to Dartmouth College’s binding Early Decision program fell significantly. In 2008, four out of the five Andover applicants were accepted, but Dartmouth accepted only one of seven Andover applicants this year. Isabelle Engelsted ’09 was the one early applicant accepted at Dartmouth. Engelsted said, “I feel lucky… I got recruited for a sport, and so that helped a lot. They have their number of recruits, and I was lucky enough to be one of those who they chose.” Many students believe that this year was particularly difficult for early admissions, possibly because the Class of 2009 is the United States’ largest high school class in history. Lydia Smith ’09 was deferred at Dartmouth. “At first I was disappointed and assumed that getting deferred was just a nice way of being rejected, but considering that a lot of people were unhappy, I felt a lot better,” said Smith. Tina Kit ’09, who was defered at MIT, originally planned to apply to six colleges but will apply to nine because of her deferral. “I was really upset in the beginning but I’ve tried to turn it into a positive experience for me. I’ve since moved on and have taken the opportunity to look at other colleges for regular admissions,” said Kit. Some early acceptance rates for colleges rose, particularly at Amherst College, where five of six Phillips Academy applicants were accepted, up from one of five accepted applicants in 2008. Additionally, the number of applicants and acceptances to Middlebury College’s binding Early Decision program rose this year, with seven out of nine applicants accepted. Last year, Middlebury accepted one of two Andover applications. Anderson said that the acceptances to these colleges “speaks to the breadth of our student body and the diversity within the student body, and even though there are some big clusters at some schools I also think we shouldn’t lose sight of the wide variety of schools that are represented.”
