Enrolling more of the nation's best students

On June 6, 2008, members of the Yale Corporation convened in New Haven for their June meeting and the long-anticipated vote on the expansion of Yale College. With their unanimous assent, two new residential colleges were approved for construction, a move that will allow Yale to expand the undergraduate student body by about 15 percent.

Said Yale President Richard C. Levin, “We are already improving Yale’s campus on a scale not seen since the 1920s, with new facilities and renovations for science, medicine, and the arts and with the acquisition of the 136-acre Yale West Campus. The new residential colleges will add to this growth at a time when our applicant pool is among the nation’s strongest and our programs stand among the very best.”

New students, new faculty

Currently, more than 27,000 men and women apply each year for the 1,300 places in Yale’s freshman class. The added colleges will permit the University to admit about 200 more students in every class, while maintaining Yale College’s standards of academic and personal excellence. The remaining capacity will be used to ease overcrowding in Yale’s existing facilities.

The University also plans to allocate new teaching resources to ensure that all students continue to receive the same outstanding education current students enjoy. Yale is known for requiring its distinguished researchers to teach undergraduates, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will grow to keep pace with the influx of students. The administration has identified enrollment “pressure points,” including history, economics, and political science as particular areas for faculty recruitment. Additional resources for students, from financial aid to extracurricular programs, are also planned.