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Archives
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January 2007
Eight Percent Increase in Applications in 2007
Last week, the Sun reported Cornell's application numbers for the entering Class of 2011. Early decision applications were up 6 percent to 3,017, slightly less than regular applications and the overall number of applications, which both rose 7.5 percent to 27,17 and 30,191, respectively. What does this mean? If the University keeps its target of 3000 incoming freshman, and if last year's yield rate is any indication, the University could have an overall acceptance rate of 21 percent this year -- an all time low for the University and 3 percent lower than last year's rate. However, I suspect that the University will end up over-enrolling students because they will set the expected yield rate conservatively low -- last year 47 percent of students who were accepted enrolled in the University, whereas the University was only planning on 43 percent. But I suppose it is, after all, better to over-enroll and have more tuition dollars than to under-enroll and lose funding for a couple of assistant professors. Unfortunately, we're not provided with any interesting applications data on either transfers or the contract colleges. Applications for the contract colleges, you will recall, have been stagnant even as the number of applications the University has received has increased by almost 50 percent in the past couple of years. Interestingly, the Sun concludes its article with the sentence: Really, what's unclear about it? Cornell follows its competitor's lead and makes it much easier to apply for undergraduate, resulting in a massive infusion of new applicants because all they had to do was check off another box instead of completing a completely different application. And coincidentally, some of those new applicants completely forget to apply for a certain college at Cornell in the process. Matthew Nagowski | January 29, 2007 (#) Conflicting Endowment Returns? Buried in today's Sun article about this weekend Board of Trustee's meeting (and the approval of next year's tuition increase, important in its own right), was an interesting tidbit: In 2006, Cornell's endowment grew by 16.1 percent. But just last week the National Association of College and University Business Officers released their annual study on university endowments. In their study, Cornell's endowment grew by 14.6 percent. Coincidentally, Cornell now has the 18th largest endowment in the country... it keeps on switching spots with Notre Dame). Why the difference in reported endowment growth? I suspect that the answer may be pretty straight forward. The Sun's article probably reflects calendar year changes, while the NACUBO study reflects fiscal year (July 2005 - June 2006) growth. Unfortunately, the Sun article doesn't provide the current value of the endowment, but I would place it in the $4.5 billion range, not counting things like the University's pension fund, of course. Of course, some people are probably asking: "Wait, hasn't the capital campaign already raised over a billion dollars... why isn't all that money reflected in the endowment?" It's easy to forget that most of the capital campaign's capital is going to be going towards physical capital, not financial capital. A lot of money is being poured into projects like the New Life Sciences Building and the West Campus Residential Initiative project. Matthew Nagowski | January 29, 2007 (#) Matt Wong '06 Wins MetaEzra Holiday Contest
 What does Matt win for submitting the most creative entry? This very bib of course. Kudos to Matt. Matthew Nagowski | January 11, 2007 (#) |
-- College: The Sequel (AGuess) -- Reunions Wrap-Up (Nagowski) -- Cornellians in Politics Roundup (EBilmes) -- Matt and Andy: Reunion Weekend Free-For-All (Nagowski) -- Fuchs and Skorton Did Not Want AEM in CALS (Nagowski) -- Breaking: Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management (Nagowski) -- Reunion Week! (Nagowski) -- Elie's Graduation Post (Nagowski) -- Gifting Demographics (Nagowski) -- Skorton Increasingly Lehman-esque (Nagowski) -- On The Sport of Lacrosse (Nagowski) -- Fuchs: I Am The Decider (Nagowski) -- The Cornell Reunion Blazer! (Nagowski) -- AAP Has Erosion Issues (Nagowski) -- An Interview With Student-Elected Trustee Nighthawk Evensen (Nagowski) -- The Real 161 Things (Nagowski) -- The Costs of Decentralization (Nagowski) -- University CIO To Start Own Hedge Fund (Nagowski) -- Overenrolled Again? Yield Higher Than Expected (Nagowski) -- Supporting Students (Nagowski) -- Steven Strogatz is a Cornell Treasure (Nagowski) -- Happy Slope Day (Nagowski) -- Incoming Freshmen Class Always Impresses (Nagowski) -- Munier's Swan Song (Nagowski) -- $71 MM in Cuts, Future Layoffs Imminent (Nagowski) -- Skorton's Bedside Manner (Nagowski) -- Historical Integrity (Nagowski) -- Discriminatory Professor Loses Discrmination Lawsuit (Nagowski) -- Introducing Opzi, a Cornell Startup (Nagowski) -- Courting the Canucks (Nagowski)  |