A dramatic 16-percent overall drop in undergraduate admissions applications has the University grasping for answers.
For fall admissions, the University received a total of 14,298 first-year and transfer student applications - a 2,792 nose dive from last year's 17,090 applications.
Possible causes range from the $20 increase in the admissions application fee to the University's slip in the annual U.S. News & World Report college rankings to a more tense racial climate as a result of negative publicity from the University's recent affirmative action debate (see related story).
The application fee hike from $40 to $60, passed by the Board of Visitors last year, will help pay for the renovations of the office of Admissions new home in Peabody Hall. But it also may have played a role in deterring prospective students from completing an admissions application.
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African-American Affairs Dean M. Rick Turner decried the Board's decision to raise the fee, citing the negative impact on overall admissions numbers.
"We made a bad decision in raising the fee. There was no reason to raise it," Turner said.
The application fee hike, coupled with the University of California-Berkeley's rise to the top of the rankings charts, moving the University to the number two spot in the U.S. News and World Report annual college rankings, may have been another factor.
College Republicans Executive Secretary Jeremy Scott said he felt the drop in applications was at least partly due "to the University's rapidly collapsing academic reputation."
The U.S. News & World Report general ranking also looks at other areas in which a university or college may be lacking - specifically, funding.
"A small reason for the drop in applications could be that a lot of college guides do not give U.Va. high rankings, and most prospective college students use them when applying to colleges," said Jovanna Frazier, a member of the University chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Some students are concerned about the effect the drop in applications has on students already enrolled in the University.
"The decline in applications makes present students think about the things U.Va. needs to improve on, such as increasing their variety of majors," Frazier said.
University of Michigan spokeswoman Julie Peterson said the University's significant drop in admissions applications does not concur with current national trends.
"We're seeing an increasing number of high school graduates, starting in 1996, in both the state and national levels, and there is a lot more competition for spaces at colleges," Peterson said. "The proportion of high school graduates aspiring to go to college is up."
Many students also are concerned that the political atmosphere at the University is acting as a deterrent to prospective students.
Controversy over the University's use of race in admissions may be responsible for alienating liberal students - and conservative students as well.
Scott said he believes prospective conservative students are shying away from the University.
"The administration has consistently embraced far-left, neo-socialist positions ... rather than concentrating on a falling academic reputation," he said. "I know a number of students who transferred from the University due to the rapidly changing environment."
Unlike the University, Blacksburg rival Virginia Tech experienced about a 10-percent increase in undergraduate admissions applications.
Karen Torgersen, director of Undergraduate Admissions at Virginia Tech, said "part of the conventional wisdom is that when [a school's] football team does well, the applications go up."
"Our applicants have increased by around 10 percent - a record for this year. The notoriety of the football team came into play, along with a combination of other factors," she said.
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