Forty-one percent of those students who applied for entry to the Class of 2008 were accepted, continuing the University's trend of increasing selectivity, according University President Jehuda Reinharz's Spring 2004 letter to the community. The acceptance rate last year was 42 percent, and the year before, 43. The class of 2001 was the first since 1972 in which less than half of applicants were accepted.

The Class of 2008 will consist of approximately 750 students arriving in August and approximately 90 students arriving in January as midyears.

Accepted students were chosen from a pool of 5,831 applications, a 12 percent increase in domestic applications, according to Reinharz' letter. The number of early decision applications also rose-up to 331 from 297 last year.

"I think it is going to be a really strong class," Director of Enrollment Deena Whitfield said. "We had a lot of very good applicants this year and I think they will make up an excellent class. By quantitative measures (class rank and SAT scores) this class is stronger than last year's."

She declined to give specific numbers because the class makeup will shift as students are accepted off the waitlist or choose to defer a year.

The Class of 2008 is smaller than the previous two classes. Whitfield attributes it not to an attempt to shrink the size of the school, as some have speculated, but to a balancing process that occurs every year.

"The goal is to have a population of 3,100, so depending on the size of the graduating class is, we adjust the freshman class so that we can keep our numbers roughly the same," Whitfield said. "The size of the class varies from year to year."

Whitfield said that the Class of 2008 has a larger minority population than past classes. The boost comes from increasing outreach to minority students by sending more representatives to areas with high minority populations.

"We have made increases in our students of color, both in real numbers and as a percentage of the class," Whitfield said. "The applicant pool had a more robust minority pool, we had better applications from the students of color and more yield from them. We also spent more time directly recruiting good minority candidates this year."

The male-to-female ratio will also even out with the incoming first-years. The new class will help balance out the ratio for the entire school.

Whitfield said that the admissions staff has made tremendous progress with regard to the mid-year class. With the help of current mid-year students, admissions staff members created a panel discussion at the accepted students' weekend and this year's mid-year students will call the new mid-years to help ease their transition.

Whitfield said she is "pleased that the program is so popular, people on the campus are aware, and we will work to provide good housing and USEMs (University Writing Seminars) for [midyears]."

While the numbers for the class are relatively solid at this point, they are not definite. Students who were wait-listed at other schools may be admitted and choose to matriculate there. Also, some students who were wait-listed at Brandeis will receive admission and may decide to come here. There may also be students who choose to defer admission for a year before beginning school.

"We have a good number of students who defer. Almost 50 deferred last year," Whitfield said. "A lot of them go to Israel and do other programs."

This is not unique to Brandeis, Whitfield said. Across the country, students are electing not to begin school right away and gain some "real world experience" before jumping right back into a classroom.