Donald Keough, News Editor–
Denison’s number of applications reached 15,000 this year, a 3% increase from last year which retains last year’s 17% acceptance rate.
“Denison’s in a really, really good spot from an admission perspective,” Meg Huston Ulsh ’12 said during an interview. “Admission rate is never a goal but increasing applications show that a lot of students are excited about Denison.”
Huston Ulsh is the Associate Vice President and Chief of Staff of the Enrollment Management division, and she has been at Denison since 2017.
The admission rate has steadily dropped from about 45-50% throughout 2014-2016 to 17% this year and in 2023, and Huston Ulsh explained this is for several reasons.
“Denison is really good at delivering on our value proposition,” Huston Ulsh said. “We’re a liberal arts college that acknowledges the whole student in a way that I think is truly sincere in preparation for life after Denison… and we have alumni that are going out and doing amazing things. I think there’s value in [these things] because people want to know that their education is going to have significant value when they leave.”
This year, race was no longer allowed to be considered a factor in admissions, after the U.S Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action in June. Huston Ulsh believes that Denison will be able to meet its diversity goals through other programs.
“We always consider broad diversity as an important part of what it means to be at Denison. We think of [diversity] in a broad way and I think with that, then we are automatically recruiting the right kinds of students,” Huston Ulsh said.
“I would say that Denison is in a good place in that we work with a number of community-based organizations.” Denison also has a number of programs that help in recruiting a broadly diverse student body, including Dialogue with Denison, the Ohio Initiative, and our partnership with Questbridge.
Huston Ulsh said that she believes Denison’s inclusivity includes a wide range of factors.
“We’re regionally diverse and we’re definitely diverse from a race perspective,” Huston Ulsh said. “But then I also love that we’re ideologically diverse here and that it’s not, you know, a bunch of people who all agree and think one thing but we are able to have civil discourse and conversations that maybe are harder to have. I think that’s something that Denison does that not everyone does.”
Looking ahead, Huston Ulsh hopes that Denison will be able to keep recently admitted students’ enthusiasm for the school.
“Our spring Admitted Student Programs are going really well, and registration is strong for us in comparison to where we’ve been in the past,” Huston Ulsh said. “ I think there’s a lot of people who are viewing us positively…we have a lot of momentum here at Denison.”