Collegiate Times

The undergraduate admissions office at Virginia Tech has sent out admission offers to next year's freshman class.

They typically make around 12,000 offers, according to the office's public relations coordinator Amy Widner, but they are aiming for about 5,000 incoming freshmen.

"It's not an exact science," Widner said. "We make the best offers that we can and hope to come close enough."

Although the job of offering admissions is not precise, the workers have done it long enough to understand trends. The school will probably end up with slightly more than its goal by the acceptance deadline of May 15, but they always lose a few students over the summer, Widner said.

"We've been doing this for a long time," Widner said. "It typically does come out right around the target."

As of May 15 last year, 5,215 freshmen were enrolled at Tech. The university planned for an identical goal of 5,000 students last year.

While statistics on the incoming freshman class are not yet known, the admissions office has estimated the scores of the class of 2012. The middle 50 percent of all students offered admission scored between 1150 and 1320 on the SAT, with the average being 1238. These numbers include the critical reading and math portions of the test, as Tech does not look at the writing aspect.

As for GPA, the middle 50 percent of students' high school averaged between 3.62 and 4.08. Widner said these numbers have risen slightly since last year, following national trends.

"Certainly the quality of the class continues to rise," Widner said. "We are continually impressed at the quality of the applicant pool each year."

This year, over 20,000 people applied to Tech, the highest number of applicants the university has ever seen. Since applications continue to increase while the number admitted remains about the same, Tech has become increasingly competitive. Widner said the number of applicants rose by about 6 percent over last year, but the number has been approaching 20,000 for several years now.

Although the university does not expect to receive many more acceptance letters in the next few weeks than they did last year, there is always the possibility that Tech could be overloaded with freshmen. Kenneth Belcher, associate director of occupancy management, said they will take care of that problem if it arises.

"Once we get (the exact number of incoming freshmen), we will make a determination if there is an overage and make plans accordingly," Belcher said.

With 9,125 beds on campus, the university is already planning for some overage at 5,000 freshmen. Housing Services has had experience with the issue after having an overcrowding of freshmen this year.

Belcher said that the manner in which they handle an overage problem "depends on scope and scale." As for the long term, students are most likely aware of the residence hall construction occurring on campus. Although there will be more residence hall space in the next couple of years, Belcher said that Ambler-Johnston Hall will be renovated at the same time, so there will not be an abundance of new on-campus living space in the near future.