After more students than expected accepted their offers of admission to the Class of 2011, Tufts will adjust its selectivity this year to reflect the increased yield.
"During Regular Decision our yield increased nearly five percent, which was an unexpected and significant increase that our forecasting model did not predict," Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin said in an e-mail.
While the university maintained an acceptance rate of 27 percent this year, the increased yield led to 148 freshmen starting off the year in forced triples.
As a result, Coffin said that if his office receives a comparable number of applications for the Class of 2012, "fewer students will be offered admission on the assumption that more of them will enroll."
Last year, Tufts enrolled 786 students during Regular Decision and another 38 from the waiting list for a total of 824 students, but this year, 901 students enrolled and none were taken off the list, according to Coffin. With the students accepted early, this led to a class of 1,375 students this year.
Coffin said that the increased yield can be attributed to the increased availability of financial aid, the university's growing reputation and "the resonance of our message."
While this year's entering class is large, the overall enrollment at Tufts has remained fairly constant, according to Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman.
"You have to look at enrollment as a four-year trend, not a snapshot of one class," he said.
The entering Class of 2010, for example, was relatively small with 1,283 students, as was the Class of 2008 with 1,280, while the Class of 2009 started off with 1,367 students, a number comparable to the current freshman class.
The Class of 2009, while slightly smaller than the current freshman class, set the record for forced triples, with 189 students starting off the year in them.
Reitman said that Classes of 2009 and 2011, with their high enrollment rates, are not out of the ordinary.
"This isn't that unusual," he said. "Every two to three years, Admissions produces a class that can't be accommodated."
Still, this year's increased yield is likely to have an impact on the lottery, as less housing might be available next year to juniors and seniors.
Since upperclassmen often opt for singles that sophomores would otherwise take, there is a trickle-down effect that makes less rooms available for freshmen.
"This year, we were able to accommodate all the juniors who requested campus housing," Reitman said. "Next year, that is less likely to be the case."
Office of Residential Life and Learning Director Yolanda King said that her office will try to get an early handle on the situation through a survey to be sent out to rising seniors next month. The survey will try to determine how many upperclassmen will be seeking to live on campus next year.
"The results from the brief survey will assist us in determining how much housing we will have or need for the seniors and juniors," she said in an e-mail.
The ORLL also plans "to start much earlier in disseminating information to all students to let them know what is going on and how to participate in selecting a room for next year," King said.
Despite increased housing pressures, Reitman and King said that there are no plans in the works to build another dormitory.
"I think there's more discussion about funding for renovation of existing facilities than there is for building new ones," according to Reitman, who noted that both Stratton and Wren were renovated before the beginning of this year.
He said that looking at the number of empty beds typically available on campus, there does not appear to be a need for another dorm.
Last year Tufts opened in the fall with 80 empty beds, and Reitman said that the number grew to around 300 in the spring as students left to study abroad. Some beds have already opened up this fall, clearing the way for the administration to break up some of the triples.
But recent renovations in Stratton, during which several doubles were converted into singles, and the removal this year of some rooms from the lottery because they presented fire-code violations or were simply undesirable, suggest that fewer rooms than usual will open up in the spring.
Still, Reitman said that this year's numbers do not suggest that a new dorm will be needed. "Do we need another dormitory looking at this year? I would say no," he said.
As the university's administrators grapple with concerns raised by an increased yield, Reitman said that they will certainly not be alone.
Other schools, including Colgate University and the University of Vermont, experienced similar problems with over-yield this year, he said.
Reitman said that this was probably due to a variety of factors, including job-market fluctuations, an increase in colleges' abilities to provide financial aid and a ballooning number of high-school seniors seeking to continue their education.
"[Financial aid] was a big factor at Tufts," Reitman said. As a result of Beyond Boundaries, the university's ongoing capital campaign, "students who before would not have been able to accept the offer of admission were able to come to Tufts," he said.
And as University President Lawrence Bacow continues to prioritize financial aid with the goal of eventually being need-blind, Reitman expects more high yields in the future.
"That's a wonderful statement," he said. "It's something we should be proud of. It's a good problem to have."
