Ben Taylor applied to transfer to the UW this coming spring quarter. Growing up a Husky, Taylor cheered for UW athletics and listened to his dad recount his days as a UW law student, dreaming that one day he could call the UW his school.

While low grades hindered his admission to the UW after high school, Taylor studied hard at Bellevue Community College, earning a 3.9 GPA and increasing his odds of getting into the UW as a transfer student this spring.

That was until he read an article in the Seattle Times Saturday and learned that the UW is not accepting new students this spring quarter.

“It was more than anger,” he said. “It was kind of like a feeling of heartbreak. The UW has been a school I wanted to attend my entire life, and I feel like I was at the cusp of reaching that dream.”

Nearly 350 spring quarter applicants who would have been accepted to the UW under normal circumstances will not be admitted this spring. The UW made this decision early last week as a result of budget cuts and an over-enrollment of approximately 1,100 undergraduate students.

While letters have been sent out this week to notify applicants, Taylor wished that the UW Admissions Office could have notified him ahead of time, especially since he felt the office had done a good job of communicating in the past.

“It was unfortunate timing,” said Philip Ballinger, Director of Admissions at the UW. “It wasn’t the fault of anybody that [this decision] broke to the press before getting letters out to the students.”

Some exceptions to spring admissions were made. Five athletes, all of whom had signed prior commitment to the UW, as well as a number of students in early entrance or special programs, were accepted for spring quarter.

The hundreds of other would-be students must now face three alternative options.

They can hold their applications for fall quarter, consider applying to the UW Tacoma or the UW Bothell campuses, or request a refund of the $50 application fee.

“We’d be more than happy to talk to students about options,” Ballinger said.

He said that, come fall, the admissions office will know which students decided to hold their application for fall quarter, but those applicants will still join the pool of other fall applicants.

Ballinger emphasized that these applicants will not receive guaranteed admission into the UW Tacoma or UW Bothell campuses, which face budget and over-enrollment problems of their own.

“Applications are up about 20 percent compared to a year ago this time,” said Derek Levy, Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Services at UW Tacoma.

Levy said it is too early to tell how many students the Tacoma campus will be able to admit this spring, since it depends on graduation and student-leave, as well as the current over-enrollment issue.

“For this spring, we do expect to have some space, but there’s a lot more competition for those spaces than in the past,” said Mike Wark, Director of Public Relations and Communications at UW Tacoma.

The campus has started taking applicants for spring, but priority deadlines for some programs have already passed.

Due to the economic downturn, the UW Tacoma has halted its expansion plans, which included a nine percent growth over five years.

The move to close spring admissions is one example of what the UW community will have to face as the budget crisis unravels, adding burdens to the school and forcing tough decisions to be made.

“I knew that the schools were going to have their budgets cut, but I never in my wildest dreams would think [the UW] would stop admitting students,” Taylor said.

In December, Gov. Chris Gregoire proposed a $116 million cut to the UW budget during the next two years, which is on top of $17 million that has already been cut from this year’s budget.

Conversation about closing admissions only applies to spring quarter 2009, although stricter acceptance standards are expected to be implemented in the future.

Reach reporter Emily Lee at news@dailyuw.com.