After witnessing the Class of 2011's over-enrollment last year, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Lee Coffin says the Class of 2012's size "is right on the money."
After receiving responses from accepted applicants, "our yield model held up against the uncertain external terrain, and we are on track to enroll 1,275 students, as planned, in the Class of 2012," Coffin told the Daily. "In other words, the next freshman class will not be an extra-large one."
For the second year in a row, 34 percent of admitted students from the Regular Decision pool chose to attend Tufts.
Coffin said that because this year's freshman class is not larger than expected, Tufts should have no problem housing the Class of 2012.
"There will be no housing implications. There will be no forced triples next year," he said.
While last year's over-enrolled freshman class prohibited the admissions office from accepting any transfer students last fall, Coffin expects that admissions will be able to enroll 50 of the 770 transfer applications it received.
"This year's transfer class [will be] unaffected by the freshmen," Coffin said.
According to Coffin, the preliminary class profile matches those of recent enrolling classes. Next year's freshman class has an average SAT score of 2122, a record high. Eighty-three percent of incoming freshmen ranked in the top 10 percent of their graduating class and 27 percent are students of color.
Although final financial aid numbers are still in the works, Coffin said that at least 10 percent of the Class of 2012 are Pell Grant recipients and 36 percent will have a Tufts grant. Both of these numbers are similar to the Class of 2011's.
"While these estimates are very rough, it looks like our socioeconomic diversity [for the Class of 2012] is also very strong as well," Coffin said.
Coffin called last month's accepted students weekend "terrific," and said Tufts witnessed a record-high number of interested students on campus on Friday, April 18, when over 1,000 people visited. The weekend, which took place from April 18-20, is designed to attract prospective students.
"To me, the energy of the day was very exciting," Coffin said of April 18. "The campus was very welcoming, the weather was spectacular and it was the first time in my tenure where not a single person complained about anything."
