Kean named one of the top 100 colleges with rising application rates

By Salimah McCullough | Published by December 9, 2019

Kean University is among the top 100 colleges in the United States that has had high growth in application numbers, according to 24/7 Wall Street, “a financial news and opinion company” that aggregates and republishes content from major news sites.

According to an article on the university-sponsored Kean news page, posted on November 6, the number of students applying to Kean increased by more than 47 percent between the fall semester of 2012 and the fall semester of 2017.

The report from 24/7 Wall Street comes from a collection of data collected from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “Colleges Where Applications are Skyrocketing.” Each institution sends in data regarding its admissions statistics.

According to Tom Snyder, the director of annual reports and information staff from the NCES, the data is reported through each individual institution and put into the system on NCES to calculate the statistics. There is a separate data collection system for the institutions called the College Navigator. The college navigator is “a consumer tool, not data management or collection system,” Synder explained.

“The data in our College Navigator web site is reported by the individual institutions to us,”  Snyder said. “After the data has been reported and reviewed, then we load in the appropriate data into the College Navigator website.”

Based on the article from 24/7 Wall Street, the data that was collected from the NCES reviewed five-year changes between the years 2012-2017 in the number of applications submitted to nearly 600 four year post-secondary institutions to identify the 100 colleges where applications climbed the most.

Kean ranked at number 98 with a 47 percent application increase within five years from 2012-2017. The collected data from NCES shows that Kean has an acceptance rate of 82 percent and there were 8,851 applications between 2017 and 2018 bringing the total Kean enrollment to 13,725.

In total there were 9,540 incoming freshmen applications to Kean for Fall 2019, compared to 5,718 in Fall 2014 said Karen Smith, Vice President of University Relations via email.

She further explained that enrollment services work together with University Relations to conduct high school outreach to widen the marketing of Kean University.

“[Together they] conduct outreach across the region that is reinforced by a multi-channel marketing approach to ensure prospective students learn the benefits of pursuing a degree at the most affordable comprehensive university in the state,” Smith said.

Smith attributes Kean’s application growth to the “university’s expanded marketing and communications efforts along with increased high school visits, as well as Kean’s participation in The Common Application, which began in Fall 2015.”

“Freshman applications have increased by over 65 percent during 2014- 2019,” Smith said. “As Kean’s reputation for its world-class academic programs, robust student support services, and affordable tuition has grown in New Jersey and beyond.”

Along with Kean University, there were six other New Jersey universities that made the top 100 list. Ranking at 85 was Monmouth University that saw a 51 percent application increase within five years. Following was Seton Hall University ranking at 61 with a 64 percent increase, New Jersey Institute of Technology ranked at 45 with a 72 percent increase, Rutgers University – Camden ranked at 16 with a 99 percent increase and Stevens Institute of Technology ranking at number 12 with a 104 percent increase in applications.

Statistics have shown that undergraduate enrollment in America’s colleges and universities has fallen for eight consecutive years. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, enrollment decreases have continued. Enrollment for the spring 2019 semester was down 300,000 all across America. This has been a growing trend since fall 2017 when there was a 7 percent decrease from the total enrollment in 2010.

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