Admissions Committee
Annual Report, 2007-2008
I'm pleased to report that Furman Admissions had another banner year with a record 4,590 applications. The Admissions staff and Admissions Committee have worked hard to shape the best possible class for next fall. The greatest challenges continue to be financial. This year those challenges have been exacerbated by a slumping economy that causes families to reassess their funding priorities and often to opt for the least expensive college. Furman is not often in that category, so the Admissions staff has to work harder to convince applicants to choose Furman.
Due to a larger graduating class, next fall's class (class of 2012) will be 40 students larger than 2011. To help balance the numbers, Admissions has increased our transfer students to 35 compared to 22 last year.
The Admissions Committee is also completing the third year of our pilot program whereby we read and rated essays of selected students without considering any other academic information. In some cases, students were admitted based on the quality of those essays in concert with other academic information presented at our meetings. In our final Admissions Committee meeting we will decide the next steps to pursue with this pilot program.
Admissions committee members also participated in the Hollingsworth and Lay Scholarship interviews along with other faculty members and students. Both of these scholarship days went very well and have yielded some of our top members of the Class of 2012.
Marty Cook will serve as chair for next year and we both welcome any input you have for this committee.
Respectfully submitted,
Jay Oney, chair
Admissions Committee
5 May 2008