On March 28, the admissions office sent out 1,416 acceptance letters to the potential class of 2012.

Applications totaled 3,245, a 6.5 percent increase in applications since last year.

“Of the 3,200 applications we read it seemed to be a very engaged, intellectually curious group of students who have done amazing things: not only students who have succeeded in the classroom, but also made an impact in their campus community, and I think those are the students who we try to identify in the admission process that we think would be a good fit for Whitman,” said Director of Admissions Kevin Dyerly.

Following national admittance trends, Whitman’s applicant pool was increasingly qualified, increasingly diverse and increasingly female.

“The profile of admitted students  remains quite strong, if not slightly better this year,” said Dyerly.   “This was the most ethnically diverse applicant pool in the history of the college.”

Comprising the potential class of 2012 are students from 42 different states and the District of Columbia and 24 different countries, including: Botswana, Bulgaria, Burma/Myanmar, Burundi, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, P.R. China, Pakistan, Romania, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.

Ethnic diversity of accepted students is also strong with 21 percent of the potential class being students of color.

Gender representation was 60 percent female and 40 percent male.

“The application season has turned out well for Whitman,” said Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Tony Cabasco, in an article to The Fountain.   Cabasco was unavailable to provide additional insight to The Pioneer.

The median scores of admitted students were 31 for the ACTs and 2050 for the SATs.   As well, 76 percent of admitted students were in the top tenth of their high school class, with an average high school GPA of 3.9.

With such strong accepted students, the college is trying hard to convince perspectives to commit to Whitman.

Acceptances are trickling in, and Dyerly anticipates seeing a spike in responses after Admitted Students’ Day.   Additionally, the school is hosting admitted students’ receptions, which the office hopes will entice accepted students to say ‘yes.’

The rise in applications this year has resulted in a rise in visitors.   This month alone, the admissions office expects to see more than 450 students, a vast increase from last April’s visitor count.

“It’s an exciting time; it’s busy,” said Dyerly.

To help cope with additional applications, several part-time readers were hired to help complete the two reads that each application receives.

“It meant a lot of long hours for our staff reading these applications because we didn’t have any more time to read them,” said Dyerly.

To further aid in the reading, a new scanning technology was adopted.   This new step allowed the admissions office to process more applications by converting paper applications, which account for a little less than 20 percent of applications, into electronic files that could be read remotely.

“Our regional admission officers were able to read electronically this year since we scanned every completed application,” said Dyerly.

While the final class of 2012 will not be established until May 1, the date by which all college candidates must reply, it is certain that the group will be very qualified.

For those students who do choose Whitman, a box of onions will be shipped to them sometime this summer.

“It’s a nice touch,” said Dyerly. “It’s a way for us to communicate with our students over the summer and let them know how excited we are in anticipation of their arrival, and give them a little taste of Walla Walla to look forward to.”