Is the Class of 2011 overenrolled?

N.B. the "Pratt" in question here is the new Charles Pratt dorm (the former Geology building), not the newly-renovated Morris Pratt. This is part of the long-term plan to put all first-year students on the Quad.

Another update: I've learned from an incoming student that the admitted student website currently lists 487 matriculating students.

I thought I remember reading in a recent edition of the Student that there was a plan to increase enrollment gradually to 1800. While 487 would still overshoot that target significantly I bet the days of 400-student classes are over.

I've heard a lot of discussion about increasing enrollment, but I'm not sure if the college has decided to put it into effect yet.

If you believe this article from the April 18th Student, than the target for this years class was 440. I've used numbers from various online sources and calculated some of statistics on percent enrolling ignoring early admissions. It seems from how I've recalculated the statistics that the percent enrolling is a little higher than normal, but less than what the Washington Post article indicates. So my guess just from looking at the numbers would be that Admissions expected that the yield would decrease slightly because of the 8% increase in applicants. However, for whatever reason this decrease in percent enrolling didn't occur, so admissions was left with a larger than expected class size.

Of course, this whole thing with yield is pretty hard to look at because of various issues. For example, I'm not sure exactly how students who defer a year count in the statistics. They certainly count in the number of matriculated students for the class of 2011, but I don't know how they are counted for yield statistics. My guess is they're probably counted for the original year they applied, not the year they actually start.

http://halogen.note.amherst.edu/~astudent/2006-2007/issue23/news/05.html

Thanks for the link and your comments, Daniel. The archives of the Student are not particularly user friendly, so I appreciate you digging that article up.

The 440 number was indeed the target as reported in the article and confirmed by others at the College. Nobody I have talked to has really formed a theory on why the yield was higher. Everyone is waiting to see how the class shakes out over the rest of the summer before making any conclusions.

The editors at the Student will hopefully follow up on this in the fall and produce an informative article; after the class of '11 is on campus, maybe the admissions office will have a better sense of how the situation has played out and share their reflections on a fascinating year in college admissions with the Amherst community.