Office begins entry process

The admissions office at IU has been flooded with mail lately. \nAs high school seniors across the nation start to plan out their futures, applications for admission come pouring in every day.\nEvery university has to make the choice whether to accept each applicant for enrollment, but the process behind this decision remains a mystery for most.\nAssociate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Services Jack Rhodes said, there seems to be a common undermining goal for admission policies at every university.\n"In the end, each institution attempts to gain the most complete picture they can on an applicant with the goal of accessing each individual's potential to succeed," Rhodes said.\nIt comes down to the big three aspects of a given applicants high school career, no matter which school they are applying to, Rhodes said. He said institutions in the Big Ten consistently consider high school units completed, class rank and/or grade point average and standardized test scores, like the SAT and ACT.\nThe difference between the Big Ten schools lies in the desired standards in each of those areas. Schools across the Big Ten set different numbers for their desired class rank or GPA, as well as standardized test scores.\n"The difference in these standards is generally due to the different levels of quality amongst the applicant pool and other characteristics of the institution, such as desired size," Rhodes said.\nUnlike IU, however, several other Big Ten universities place heavier weight on a written personal statement that every applicant has to submit. Institutions like the University of Illinois are moving toward an admission process with a "full-file" review.\n"This is looking at everything, and not necessarily admitting the 4.0 GPA student right away," said Stanley Henderson, associate provost of admissions and records at Illinois. "That student would also need leadership and other qualities found through the personal statement."\nOnce all the applications start piling in, it comes time for them to be reviewed. Each application is reviewed by an admissions director at a university. \nBut for a smaller school like IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis, admissions are done slightly differently than its counterparts.\n"Each application goes through an admissions committee," said Director of Admissions for IUPUI Mike Donahue. "The faculty of the school tells its guidelines, they have the trustees' guidelines."\nAt a school like IUPUI, applicants are directly admitted into the school of their choice, so there are different standards depending on the student's selected major choice. \nOne thing that is notorious with the Big Ten is the size of its schools. A common question is whether caps are placed on the number of students the school will admit. Some universities will place a total cap on the number of students admitted in a given year, while others may only place target numbers on a given school.\n"(The University of Illinois) has targets within each of the colleges," Henderson said.\nIU, on the other hand, is a school that decides not to place these types of restrictions, Rhodes said. However, the University does make attempts to keep the number of students admitted from getting too out of hand, he said.\n"This year and next year we have been asked to bring in a freshman class of approximately 6,750," Rhodes said. "This year we brought in a freshman class of 6,723. If a student meets our written admissions standards, he/she will be admitted to IU."\nDespite the fact that all those who meet the written admission standards are accepted, IU still is able to draw from the upper portions of those limits. Rhodes said resident students tend to rank in the upper half of their class, while those coming from out-of-state are generally in the upper third. Despite those seemingly low numbers, more than 50 percent of the new freshmen were ranked in the top 25 percent in their classes, Rhodes said.\n"Our main goal is to admit students who show the greatest potential to graduate," he said. "An acceptance or denial decision should always be made with the student in mind."\n-- Contact staff writer Brian Janosch at bjanosch@indiana.edu.