The University sent out 4,749 acceptance letters last week to students across the country after receiving a total of 15,884 applications for slots in the Class of 2009.
According to Dean of Admissions John Blackburn, the University accepted 980 students from the early decision pool, and 3,000 students still await their verdicts on the wait list.
The applicant pool raised the bar again, setting even higher expectations than in previous years, Blackburn said. While the University accepts two-thirds of its students from the Commonwealth, he said the Office of Admission always gets more applicants from out-of-state students.
"We're getting two-thirds of our class from 40 percent of our applicants," Blackburn said. "But you should see the quality of the Virginians. Students who qualify this year, for the most part, were up in the top 5 percent of their class."
Blackburn also said he expects the incoming class to add more diversity to the University.
"I think in terms of Hispanic students and Asian-American students, the number of applications is greater than last year, and we made more offers, so we'll probably have a higher percentage of students there," he said. "We saw more African-American student applications, but we made about the same number of offers."
Despite difficulties in obtaining visas, the Office of Admission saw more applications from international students, and Blackburn said he expected the percentage of international students to increase in the Class of 2009.
Adding diversity in a different aspect is the low-income students being recruited through the Access U.Va. program, Blackburn said. He said he expects the University's socio-economic diversity to increase as a result of the program's generous financial aid packages, and he also said he believes the University's five percent increase in applications this year largely is due to the promotion of Access UVa.
As the number of applications increases, class size is growing slowly as well. Blackburn added that he is anticipating the Class of 2009 to consist of about 3,100 students.
University spokesperson Carol Wood said that the Board of Visitors approved enrollment projections just last week. "We are on track to increase enrollment by 1,500 students by the 2014-2015 academic year," Wood said. "So that means an increase in 1,100 undergrads and 400 graduate students."
She said that the University also wants to make sure that Housing and other University services are able to keep up with the growth rate.
While the admissions competition is intense, Blackburn said students consistently are able to meet the high expectations.
"It's simply a matter of offering admission to the best qualified applicants," Blackburn said. "Of the people who applied, we tried to pick the students who seemed best qualified."
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