MSU’s admission rate is consistent compared to last year, but the university’s applicant pool is seeing more and more students from outside of Michigan added to the mix.
Director of admissions Jim Cotter said MSU has seen an increase in nonresident applicants.
MSU has received about 27,000 applications so far for the 2012-13 academic year, a 5.5 percent increase compared to applications received in fall 2010, Cotter said.
In a previous story, Cotter said the target number for the next academic year’s freshman class is “in the 7,350 range.”
“We have offered about the same number of offers a year ago as we did this year at that time,” Cotter said. “That involves a larger number of out-of-state students who have been admitted.”
The increase in nonresident applicants partly can be attributed to the out-of-state movement and some assertive university marketing targeting other states, Cotter said.
Cotter said there also has been a decrease in the number of in-state applicants, which might be related to the decrease in Michigan high school graduates.
Premedical freshman Raina Padilla, who came to MSU from Ohio, said she did not know when she first applied to MSU that she wanted to attend the university.
“I guess my approach was more of a ‘let’s see what it looks like,’” Padilla said.
Padilla said after a tour she fell in love with the campus and also found MSU to be appealing because she knew few people who were planning to study there.
“I only know one other girl from my city who goes to MSU,” Padilla said.
Padilla accepted her admission to MSU in November 2010, a few weeks after she heard she was accepted.
MSU historically has had a rolling admission policy, in which students can be admitted on a rolling basis and does not offer early action decision applications similar to several other Big Ten universities, including the University of Michigan.
“The college admission process ought to provide students the opportunity to investigate different universities,” Cotter said.
Education freshman Nisha Savalai also is a non-Michigan resident, coming to East Lansing from Pennsylvania. She said she found the admission process to be practical for out-of-state applicants because it gave her enough time to look into the university before making a commitment.
“It (was) hard for me to come and visit to … see whether MSU is the one for me,” Savalai said.
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