EARLY DECISION

A month and a half after announcing that it will switch to a nonbinding early action policy this fall, the Yale admissions office filled 43 percent of the class of 2007 with early decision applicants.

Yale accepted 557 students from a pool of 2,611, yielding a 21.3 percent early acceptance rate. While the number of applicants increased by 23 percent from last year, the number of students accepted increased by less than one and a half percent.

The percent of the class that Yale filled early reflects similar numbers from other schools, including Stanford University, which admitted 37 percent of its incoming class under early decision. Stanford officials also announced in October that they would switch to early action beginning this fall.

The University of Pennsylvania filled 47 percent of its incoming freshman class with early applicants, while Columbia University filled 43 percent of its class early. Dartmouth College and Cornell University filled 37 and 36 percent of their incoming classes, respectively, through early decision.

This year, 48 percent of applicants applied for financial aid, which is about the same as last year.

Yale accepted 29 international students, also in line with last year's figure. Last year, the number of international applicants rose dramatically after Yale extended need-blind admission to students outside the United States.

The University deferred about 1,000 students, who will be reconsidered with the main pool of applicants, of which approximately one in 10 will be offered admission in the spring. The number of applicants rejected was about equal to the number deferred.

The admissions office offered online notification to early applicants, following a practice that the University began last year. This spring, Princeton admissions officers illegally accessed Yale's admissions Web by using students' Social Security numbers. To avoid such problems this year, students were assigned personal identification numbers to access their decisions online.

2,344 students -- about 90 percent of all applicants -- had accessed the site by Dec. 16, three days after the site went live.

REGULAR DECISION

In a year when debates about college admissions made national headlines, Yale received a record number of applications for the Class of 2007.

After the Yale admissions office received a record number of applications this year, 1,458 regular decision applicants found out on April 2nd that they had been admitted to the Class of 2007, bringing this year's overall acceptance rate to an historic low of 11.4 percent.

Regular applicants faced a 9.6 percent acceptance rate, since the University had already admitted 43 percent of the class under its early decision program. The number of overall applicants increased by 14.7 percent this year, from 15,456 to 17,731. Last year, 13 percent of applicants, or 2,008 students, were accepted.

The number of international students admitted remained relatively steady; 183 received letters of acceptance. Of those 183 foreign students, 32 are Canadian.

The Class of 2007's geographic distribution within the United States was similar to that of last year's class. The Northeast provided the most accepted students, with 688, while there were 366 from the West, 236 from the Midwest, 208 from the South, 152 from the mid-Atlantic states, and 141 from the Southwest.

Thirty-five percent of students admitted this year are minority students. That number rises to almost 40 percent if international students are considered. In the class of 2006, 42 percent of those accepted were minority students.

Approximately 66 percent of accepted students applied for financial aid this year, a figure that remained relatively constant.

NEW POLICY

Yale University's early decision policy will become non-binding beginning with the Class of 2008.

Under the new plan, students can apply early to Yale, but may also apply in the regular admission period to other colleges, even if accepted to Yale.

Yale started its current early admission program in 1996 at a time when colleges across the nation were opting for early decision.

Yale President Richard Levin sparked a national debate when he criticized early decision policies in the December 2001 issue of Atlantic Monthly as needlessly rushing the college admission process for all but the minority of students who have a clear idea of their first choice.

Yale's new early action program will allow students who are very confident of their preference to receive early word from Yale while still allowing ample time for further investigation and the thoughtful weighing of options.

In April, the University of North Carolina became the first major university to switch from early decision to early action.

Brown made the opposite move, opting to convert from an early action to an early decision policy starting with the Class of 2006.