Student recruitment efforts are getting results

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

The dark economy did not overshadow Rice University’s entering class this fall, with a record-breaking number of applicants leading the way to several other admission records, including largest freshman class.

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Of the 11,172 applicants for fall 2009, Rice offered admission to 2,487 students, and 925 of them have expressed their intention to enroll by paying a nonrefundable deposit. That’s nearly a 16 percent increase over the 799 deposits for fall 2008, when Rice granted admission to 2,244 of 9,806 applicants.

Vice President for Enrollment Chris Muñoz said that over the summer the number of actual enrollees is likely to drop to around 915 as students finalize their decisions. But that will still easily top last year’s record entering class of 789 students.

Muñoz said that as the student body grows under the Vision for the Second Century (V2C) plan, Rice is continuing to attract more foreign and ethnically diverse students.

Applications from foreign students were up more than 33 percent over 2008, and 120 — an increase of 76.5 percent over last year — have made deposits.

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Learn how Rice is improving residential life for its students “We have students from foreign countries that have never been represented at Rice, such as Norway and parts of Central America,” Muñoz said. ”These students add their unique cultures and histories to the educational environment at Rice, which enriches the experience for all of us.”

Diversity among ethnicities is expanding as well, particularly among Mexican-American/Chicano applicants, which were up 38.4 percent to 483. Of those, 62 have made deposits, an increase of more than 44 percent. Black applicants were up 12.7 percent to 708, and 66 have made deposits, an increase of almost 5 percent. 

Texans will still make up about 45 percent of the student body. The 3,681 in-state applicants represent an increase of almost 11 percent; 407 have made deposits — up about 3 percent. 

“The quality of students we admitted this year is outstanding,” Muñoz said. “We thought the economy would cause students to change their order of interest. But we’re finding that many students who get the opportunity to attend Rice or to go to a public flagship university are choosing to stay with Rice.”

He attributes the higher percentage of students who are accepting Rice’s invitation to enroll to a combination of factors:

— the leadership of President David Leebron and his implementation of the V2C;

— the more than 1,800 alumni volunteers who interviewed prospective students and their families;

— a better understanding among prospective students that they will receive a high-quality and highly personal education from Rice’s world-class faculty, both inside and outside the classroom;

— campus improvements, including two new residential colleges and a new recreation and wellness center;

— greater recognition of the beauty of the Rice campus, which is now more visible, thanks to the popular new 360 degree photo tours at www.rice.edu/virtualtours/;

— participation in collaborative recruitment sessions with other universities;

— Rice’s greatly expanded presence in the news media;

— and the success of Rice athletics, including the football team’s Texas Bowl victory and the baseball team’s appearances in the College World Series.

“The fact that we’ve been this successful with recruitment at a time when we’re trying to manage difficult economic challenges speaks volumes about the hard work by so many people in the Rice community,” Muñoz said.

This year’s large entering class puts the V2C plan for a 30 percent expansion of the undergraduate student body ahead of schedule, and plans are under way to accommodate the housing and academic needs of the additional students. As usual, all freshmen will be housed on campus. To free up more space for the additional freshmen, Rice will offer on-campus upperclassmen the opportunity to live in a wing of Will Rice College that will remain open while the rest of the college is renovated. Academic opportunities available to freshmen are being assessed carefully to ensure that new students will have access to a full range of lower-level courses.