This week Yale is welcoming to campus its most diverse freshman class in the University’s history.

Over 39% of the members of the Yale College Class of 2011 have identified themselves as members of minority ethnic and racial groups, a record proportion for a freshman class.

The new freshman class also includes the highest proportion in recent years of students who intend to pursue studies in science and engineering, with about 37% of the entering freshmen indicating one of these areas as a primary interest.

“Our outreach to minorities and disadvantaged students, as well as to students with strong records of achievement in the sciences, produced record numbers of outstanding applicants,” says Jeff Brenzel, dean of undergraduate admissions. “We simply could not be more pleased with the results in both areas.”

For the third straight year, over 70% of the students offered admission to Yale accepted, marking the continuation of Yale’s appeal to the best students in the nation and the world, notes Brenzel. The new class has representatives from all 50 states and 42 foreign nations.

“We deeply appreciate the Yale students, faculty and alumni who reach out on our behalf to admitted students,” says Brenzel. “Our entire Yale community communicates with passion and conviction about the incomparable educational experience available here.”

Jeremiah Quinlan, director of outreach and recruitment, says, “Our office makes a continuous and energetic effort to reach each new generation of high school graduates. Admissions officers are on the road throughout the spring, summer and fall to give public presentations in many hundreds of cities and schools across the country and around the world. We also employ over 4,000 volunteer alumni interviewers, plus hundreds of Yale students as tour guides, pen pals, callers, bloggers, interviewers, presenters and hosts for visiting students.”

A large contingent of Yale faculty from every department also makes itself available for April’s Bulldog Days, which brought a record number of 1,077 admitted students for a three-day stay on the campus and a sampling of all things Yale.

“The financial aid office stays open for long days, the students open their dorm rooms, student organizations put themselves on display and the faculty make themselves available with a generosity that goes far beyond what most colleges can muster,” says Quinlan. “We receive extraordinary help in exhibiting Yale’s remarkable culture of citizenship and community.”

Yale also remains fully committed to ensuring that academically qualified students of all income levels have the opportunity to attend. For 40 years, the admissions office has not asked whether a family can pay for a Yale education when deciding whether to make an offer of admission, and Yale supplies the full amount of aid required to meet the determined financial need for every single undergraduate.

Over 42% of Yale’s undergraduates receive need-based scholarship aid from the University itself, and an additional 22% receive financial assistance from other sources. Yale ’s annual budget for financial aid to undergraduates is over $60 million, more than double the $30 million that was expended as recently as 2000, and the average Yale grant to financial aid students for 2006-2007 was more than $24,000. Families with incomes below $45,000 per year are no longer asked to make any contribution to the cost of a Yale education, and the average indebtedness at graduation for Yale students who use loans to help finance their educations has fallen below $13,000, about half the national average at private colleges and universities.  

Recognizing the importance of globalization, Yale also provides grant support for summer study and internships abroad. Grants cover not only the full cost of a summer experience, but also the amount that students would otherwise be expected to contribute from summer earnings, freeing every Yale undergraduate on financial aid to undertake an international experience.

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T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

University is welcoming its most diverse freshman class in history

Yale will bring educational treasures to iTunesU

Appointments Announced

• Yale College deans for student and Native American affairs
  
  
• Deputy provosts for science, faculty development
  
  
• Coordinator of community programs in science
  
  

Yale Arab Alumni Association launched this summer

Yalies get taste of Hollywood as ‘Indiana Jones’ extras

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT NEWS

• Five new faculty members begin teaching this fall
  
  
• Students win championship round of new game show
  
  
• New clinic offers free aid to local businesses, non-profits
  
  
• Jeffrey Sonnenfeld cited as a business school ‘All Star’
  
  

DeVane Lectures to explore impact of performing arts

Scientists discover that evolution is driven by gene regulation

Exhibit explores fusion of fact and fiction in pirate portrayals

Also on view at the Beinecke Library

Exhibit features landscapes by photographer Jem Southam

Volunteers will again help during ‘Days of Caring’

Show celebrates East Asia collection’s 100th anniversary

Appointments at Center for Bioethics include a new director, David Smith

New residential college deans named

Events explore topics of reconciliation and ‘laws common to all mankind’

Yale Art Museums’ Open House to feature music, tours and more

Yale Library unveils blog and search tool

OISS seeking hosts for its Community Friends program

IN MEMORIAM

• Letty Russell: Feminist theologian, leader in ecumenical movement
  
  
• Brevard S. Childs: Influential Old Testament scholar, beloved teacher
  
  
• Memorial service to be held for astronomy researcher Dorrit Hoffleit
  
  

Campus Notes

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