it's getting hot in here

On March 23rd, letters rolled down the Hill and into the hands of high school seniors waiting in anticipation to find out if they would be part of the Hamilton’s class of 2011. While some students were happy with the message in their letters, most were not. But amongst the tears of joy or sadness, one thing was crystal clear: Hamilton is hot, hot, hot.

Why? “Hard to say, and I sure wish ‘hotness’ was something I could assess,” says Monica Inzer, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid. “It is a great time to be at Hamilton—our students are smarter and more diverse than ever and more [college applicants] are choosing Hamilton as a top choice college,” as noted by early decision numbers.

Early decision applications were up 22%, reaching a record-high total of 640. But that was not the only record smashed. This year, 4,962 students applied to Hamilton, a 16% increase over last year's final total of 4,267, and 361 more than the previous record of 4,601 set in 2001.

As if it wasn’t hard enough to get into Hamilton, the quality of both the applicants and admits reached an unprecedented high. The average SAT score for admits was 1401, compared to last year’s average of 1386, and 84% of our admits ranked in the top 10% of their high school class, compared to 81% last year.

The Admissions Office also received the most diverse pool of applicants on record: 23% of the class of 2011 of are multicultural students from America; an additional 5% are international. This compares with 20% and 4% last year, and 21% and 5% in 2005.

On the other hand, fewer high school seniors were admitted this year, with a record-low acceptance rate of 27% (33% was the previous low achieved both last year and in 2003). A total of 1350 students were admitted- the lowest number of admits since 1982. Hamilton decided to accept fewer students this year because the college over-enrolled the last two years and needed a smaller first-year class. The target class size was 465, while in the past two years the target has been 470 (which ended up at 501 and 503, respectively).

Inzer said that there was simply no room on campus to be over-subscribed again. “We'd rather be on the conservative side, come up a bit short, and use the waitlist to climb up to our desired number,” she said at the end of last semester. But the other reason for accepting fewer students this year relates back to Hamilton’s hotness (of course). Because more admitted students actually chose to attend Hamilton two years running, it was seen as a trend rather than a fluke. Therefore, the predictive models call for a higher "yield" (percentage of admits that choose Hamilton), which translates into fewer admits.

This year’s yield was 34%.

This fall, 470 first-year students arrived on the Hill, with women comprising 53% of the class. This year’s first-years come from 41 states and 20 countries, although students in 47 states and 40 countries were admitted.

Inzer attributes these phenomenal numbers to Hamilton being “a very strong community of students who truly want to be here and faculty who want to teach.” And as for Hamilton being hot? “Our campus has never looked better and the recent improvements and additions (such as to the Science Center, Outdoor Leadership Center, Fitness Center,) are impressive.”

Now, if only we could keep the snow away.

-eric kuhn '09