The Cavalier daily :: Friday, February 12, 1971 :: University of Virginia Library

Ernest E. Ern, Dean of Admissions,
announced yesterday that the number of
applicants for next year's first-year class
has increased by over 3,000. By February
8 some 8,700 applications had been
received for approximately 2,200 places.

"We've been swamped with
applications," said Mr. Ern yesterday.
"Our deadline was February 1, but we
still have some 320 applications yet to be
opened." Last year at this time the
admissions office had received only 5,900
applications for some 2,000 places in the
first-year classes of the College,
Architecture School and the School of
Engineering.

"This year's applicants have taken
much more diverse academic programs in high
school than applicants in the past," stated Mr.
Ern. "They have strong grades in a variety of
subjects and as a result have been scoring much
higher on the standardized national tests." Mr.
Ern predicted that the mean SAT scores of next
year's first year class will be higher than this
year's averages of 600 verbal and 620
mathematics.

Female Applicants

Although applications have increased in all
categories, the largest single increase, more than
150 per cent, is in applications from women.
According to Mr. Ern some 2,500 women
have applied for 550 positions in the college
alone. This is marked increase from the 970
applications received last year for the 450
positions open to women in the year's first year
class.

"The women who are applying are well
qualified. Statistically the men and women are
even closer this year than last year, and we
thought they were pretty evenly matched
then."

Black Recruitment

"Because of the extensive black recruiting
program under the direction of Elizabeth
Johnson there has been a 25 per cent increase
in applications from black high school
students," he added.

The heaviest concentration of applications
have come from areas where alumni are very
active and from areas where there has
traditionally been a large number of
applications. The heaviest concentration of
students were from the South (74 per cent) and
the Mid Atlantic (18 per cent).

"Despite the number of applications, we still
expect to be able to offer admission to all
qualified Virginia residents," Mr. Ern
affirmed.