Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Yale University will decide next year whether to increase undergraduate enrollment as much as 15 percent, a move that threatens to steal top applicants from other Ivy League schools.
Two committees are studying how Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut, might accommodate as many as 200 more students in each year's freshman class, President Richard C. Levin, 60, said in an interview. Yale has about 5,300 in the four-year bachelor's degree program, according to its Web site.
An increase may draw leading candidates away from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Columbia University in New York and others that rank lower than Yale in the national ratings compiled by U.S. News & World Report, said John Maguire, the chairman and founder of Maguire Associates, a consulting company in Concord, Massachusetts. The effects might ripple through academia as college after college loses choice picks.
``If they take more students, the schools who are going to lose in this domino effect are the ones directly below them in the Top 10,'' said Maguire, formerly dean of admissions at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. ``They will take some students from Penn and Columbia, and Penn and Columbia will take students from BC and Holy Cross.''
Yale's alumni include U.S. President George W. Bush and his two immediate predecessors. The school ranks third on the latest U.S. News list, behind Princeton University in New Jersey and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Penn is ranked fifth, while Columbia is tied for ninth.
`Many Great Kids'
``The principal reason for moving up is that we are turning down so many great kids,'' Levin said. ``The applicant pool is so much larger, and selectivity is so much greater.''
Levin, who is also a professor of economics at Yale and a board member of American Express Co. in New York, received his doctorate in economics from Yale in 1974. As president since 1993, he has overseen the investment of more than $2 billion to renovate the campus.
The limited number of openings at top colleges has meant that thousands of students must go elsewhere. Yale rejected 90.4 percent of its applicants this year and 91.1 percent last year. Harvard rejected 91 percent. Princeton turned away 90.5 percent.
``We're an institution that has expanded in every dimension: We have more faculty, more staff, more resources, more of everything, but not more students,'' Yale's Levin said. ``To create more opportunity to give outstanding students access to these resources: That is a compelling argument.''
Harvard Stands Pat
If approved by the school's ruling board, the extra students would push Yale closer to matching the 6,700 undergrads at Harvard. Yale would surpass Princeton, which plans to have 5,200 undergraduates when it completes its own expansion in 2012.
Harvard isn't considering adding undergraduates, spokesman Robert Mitchell said. Penn spokesman Ron Ozio said the school doesn't have any plan to expand and wouldn't comment on Yale's proposal. A Columbia spokesman also declined to comment.
Levin said Yale may build two more residence halls and expand its faculty as a consequence of adding students.
``This would actually allow us to increase the faculty because we would want to retain the small class sizes we have now,'' Levin said. ``That could be useful in strengthening some of our departments in a strategic way,'' aiding research as well as teaching, he said.
Yale may succeed in growing without harming quality, said Claire Van Ummersen, vice president of the Center for Effective Leadership of the American Council on Education, a trade group in Washington.
A Boost Among Applicants
``If all the things fall into the right spot, it would be possible for them to do it without any effect on the quality of the program except to increase it,'' said Van Ummersen, 72, formerly the president of Cleveland State University.
Yale was founded in 1701, in Saybrook, Connecticut, as the Collegiate School. It became Yale College in 1718, named for benefactor Elihu Yale, a merchant who donated books and goods. Called Yale University since 1887, the school now has about 6,000 students in graduate and professional programs in addition to the undergrads.
The ability to take more students would give Yale a boost among applicants to colleges, said Toby Brewster, 46, the director of college advising at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire.
Yale is a popular choice at St. Paul's, a private, four- year boarding school about 70 miles north of Boston, Brewster said. William Randolph Hearst, the late newspaper mogul, and U.S. Senator John F. Kerry are among the graduates of St. Paul's. Kerry also attended Yale.
``If there is a possibility that they can admit a few more of our students, we're delighted,'' Brewster said.
The risk for Yale is that with a bigger community, the school might not feel right to some students, said Katherine Cohen, the chief executive officer of IvyWise, a New York consultant on admissions.
``It is so individual when students are looking at communities,'' Cohen said in a telephone interview. ``Yale might be too big for them, so they look at an Amherst College or Williams College.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: August 30, 2007 00:01 EDT