The admissions office plans to enroll 825 students next year, as opposed to the 750 it aimed to enroll last year, according to Dean of Admissions Gil Villanueva.Commenting on the University's recent proposal to increase the student body by 12 percent in order to raise revenue, Dean of Financial Services Peter Giumette said, "Like many schools that are moderately endowed, much of our operating budget comes from revenue and the major portion of our revenue comes from tuition payment."

Villanueva explained that another reason for admitting more students is that "many of our students are actually more and more studying abroad, and also so many are so strong that they are graduating at a faster rate."

The numbers of regular and early decision applicants, as well as the targeted figure for midyear applicants, are lower for 2009, according to Villanueva.

Villanueva revealed that 6,451 regular- decision applicants have applied as of last Friday, which "is lower than last year's number by roughly 12.2 percent."

Villanueva said the numbers of first- round early- decision and second- round early-decision applicants for 2009 are 280 and 159, respectively. Reflecting upon the number of applicants for ED1 and ED2 from last year, Villanueva commented, "[The figures] are down, but not significantly down." He said, however, that the acceptance rate for early-decision applicants is "roughly the same."

The University is planning to admit about the same number of midyears next year as it did last year. The target number of midyears the admissions office hopes to admit next year is 115, in comparison to last year's figure of 111, Villanueva said.

"When recessions happen, we learned that college attendance went up but the direct beneficiaries were the public and state universities, [so] families are looking at institutions where the cost, or at least the perceived cost, is not going to be as high," he said. "If you're comparing a state University versus Brandeis, you're looking at a cost difference of anywhere between [$20,000 and $30,000], and that is a lot of money for a lot of people."

Giumette explained that Brandeis admits on a need-blind policy for domestic students so "the admissions office is neither aware nor concerned about a student's application for financial aid." He expressed hope that Brandeis will continue to be need blind but said, "many schools have gone to what they call "need-aware" or "need-sensitive" admissions; that means they're no longer need-blind. Giumette said, "This coming year we [are going to remain need-blind], but beyond that, I don't know," implying that Brandeis' admission policy may be subject to change in upcoming years in order to meet budget cuts.

"There are also many reasons to consider [being] need-aware [when admitting students] because obviously it allows you to better manage perhaps the type of income one institution will bring into campus; but in keeping with the social justice mission of this school, being need-blind for domestic students is in line," Villanueva said.

However, Giumette said the financial situations of students on the waitlist are taken into account. Assistant Vice President for Students and Enrollment Frank Urso confirmed, "We don't know what the numbers [for enrolling students off the wait list this year will look like, but the approach will be the same as any other year."

In response to Kiplinger.com's ranking of Brandeis as no. 16 for best value in terms of academic quality and affordability, Villaneuva said, "We want to make sure that our students can move onto the bigger things.