Note: This article is the first in a series that examines UO’s trends on admittance, application rates, and demographics. Part two examines the influx of nonresident, and can be read here. Part three will look at international students and will run on print Monday.
UO’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last decade, and the desire to be a Duck is not coming from Oregon’s own.
This trend is reflected in the current student body. Spring term of 2004, the UO had 71 percent Oregon residents, according to the Office of the Registrar.
According to Director of Admissions Jim Rawlins, this spring the UO’s student body is only about 53 percent Oregonians – close to a 20 percent drop in ten years.
But what does this drop mean for Oregonians?
Since 2007, the number of students who apply to UO has grown considerably, but the vast majority of growth comes from out-of-state and international students, as an Emerald article from November 2012 explained. A recent NYT article addressed how college admission competition has caused some students to cast wider nets when applying, driving the application numbers up, and the acceptance rate down.
“We’ve had rapid growth in applications, mostly from out-of-state and international applicants,” Rawlins said.
While resident applications have stayed stable, international and out of state applications have increased considerably in the last decade. Data from Jonathan Jacobs, UO director of enrollment management research.
Applicant numbers reflect how the university’s demographic is changing — numbers from Jonathan Jacobs, UO Director of Enrollment Management Research, show that only 4,594, or 20.9 percent, of the fall 2013 applicants were Oregonians. Roughly 80 percent of applicants are not Oregon’s own graduating high school seniors.
Over the last decade, the popularity of the university has grown. Rawlins explained that the growth has recently leveled off.
“Each of the last four years, we’ve had over 20,000 applications for freshman admission,” Rawlins said. “The size of our freshman class hasn’t changed much, though.”
But the breakdown of students has. Give or take a fluctuation of a few hundred students, the Oregonian population of the UO has hovered around 13,000 for the last 7 years, according to the Office of the Registrar.
The Oregonian population of the UO hasn’t changed, but many nonresidents have been added to the Duck pond.
Among the admitted student body, the UO accepts a lower percentage of in-state residents than many other schools. Numbers from Jacobs show that the admitted student body for fall 2013 was only 24.9 percent Oregonians, flanked by 66.7 percent out-of-state and 8.4 percent international students.
By comparison, other similar universities tend to admit higher percentages of in-state residents out of all admitted students.
The Office of Institutional Research uses peer institutions for comparison based on similarities in benchmarks like faculty salary and instruction. Two of UO’s peer institutions, UC Berkeley and CU Boulder, had roughly 65 and 35 percent residents comprising their accepted students, respectively, according to their websites — a difference of up to 40 percentage points compared to UO.
Rawlins explained that applicants compete in like pools — resident, out-of-state, and international students are placed for consideration in their own groups. Those applying to Oregon are not competing against the whole swath of 20,000 students – they’re competing against others in their group.
In recent years, Rawlins said, the office has aimed to attain a ratio of 50 percent resident, 40 percent nonresident and 10 percent international students for the freshman class.
“We are a public institution for this state and think that an important target as we serve the state,” Rawlins said.
The office seeks to attain at least 50 percent residents comprising their freshman class — a goal of the university on “philosophical grounds.”
The Office of Admission also tries to limit the freshman international component to no more than 10 percent. Maintaining this international ratio, Rawlins said, is “in an effort to make sure that this segment of our population doesn’t grow any faster than our ability to welcome and support them well.”
After the residents and international students are accounted for, the admissions office fills the remaining freshman spots with nonresidents.
So in order to achieve a 50-40-10 split, the university may accept more people than they believe intend to actually enroll. The Office of Admissions decides who to offer admission by predicting the likelihood of each applicant to accept the admissions offer and enroll. Rawlins said about 50 percent of admitted Oregonians enroll, while only about 20 percent of admitted nonresidents enroll.
While applicants and demographics show that the UO’s popularity is surging among non-Oregonians, the acceptance rate for Oregonians has barely budged. The resident acceptance rate has been around 85 percent for the last several years, based on statistics from Jacobs.
It’s not that Oregonians have a harder time getting accepted because of the increased interest from beyond the state — it’s that compared to nonresidents, there’s not that many Oregonians applying.
Note: This story was edited on June 4 for errors found in the story and infographic.
