The college application process is becoming more accessible for individuals pursuing Lawrence University as a potential institution to complete their undergraduate degree. On Sept. 28, 2015, Lawrence University announced that they will no longer be charging a $40 application fee and that early decision would be replaced with another early action option. The absence of this fee will likely increase the rate of applications as it makes applying to Lawrence virtually painless in terms of finances.
Current students may ask, “Why should I care about this? I already go here.”
It is difficult to accurately predict what will happen, but it seems to us that changing the application process in this way will actually greatly impact the way Lawrence University is seen nationally and around the world. This change in the application requirements could allow people who might not have applied to due to the fee or application options to not rule out Lawrence.
We believe that making Lawrence University more accessible to students with financial need will be a positive change and another step in the direction of becoming a full-need institution. However, we hope that the admissions team and the rest of the administration is mindful of how an influx of more applications than usual will impact the daily life of the students.
Recently, there have already been issues related to student housing on campus.
With the student body continuously growing, there have been few significant housing changes to increase the amount of rooms available to students. There will also be fewer group houses, which will be sightly made up for with the new lofts in Colman Hall.
The limited housing has caused the quality of campus life to decrease as residence halls have had to make sacrifices in order to accommodate the increase in students. For instance, many of the floor lounges in the residence halls are no longer being used for their intended purpose as communal spaces for the floor. Instead of being used for hall floor programs or another place to study, many of the lounges have been converted to double or triple dorm rooms.
The increased size of the student body also makes it harder to honor the small class sizes that Lawrentians value so much and that are such a big part of marketing Lawrence to prospective students.
In short, we are excited about the potential good that these changes will bring, but we want the administration to be aware that we value our small school and living quarters that match the price we pay for them.