The second-largest pool of such applicants in the school’s history — 2,231
By: David Campbell
Applications for early admission to Princeton University’s Class of 2010 are up by 9 percent from last year, with a total of 2,231 applicants, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said Tuesday.
"We are pleased with the quality of the early pool," Dean Rapelye said.
The 2,231 high school students who applied under the university’s binding early-decision program this year constitute the second-largest pool of such applicants in the university’s history, the dean said.
The largest was in 1996, according the Communications Office at Princeton. The office did not have data on the number of applicants that year.
More than half of the applicants used an online version of the application, Dean Rapelye said.
Princeton offers prospective students who have made the Ivy League university their first choice the opportunity to apply through a binding early decision.
It requires that students not apply for early decision elsewhere, though they may submit regular-decision applications at other schools.
Under the binding agreement, if they are admitted, they agree to matriculate. The early-decision application deadline was Nov. 1.
Notification letters are expected to be sent in mid-December, the Communications Office said.
All is not lost for those who do not receive the much sought-after letter of acceptance to Princeton.
Deferred candidates will be reconsidered with the regular-decision applicants, who have a Jan. 1 deadline to apply. They are expected to be notified of admission in early April.
Last year, less than a third of the 2,039 high school seniors who applied to Princeton for early decision were accepted. The university accepted 593 students from that pool of applicants.
The number of early applicants increased by 12 percent last year following the introduction of new Web-based application forms.
The aim of the additional application formats was to make applying easier and widen the net for potential applicants, the university said.

