As senioritis peaks in the final semester of many high school students’ careers, the UW Admissions Office is finalizing its waiting list and mailing the last several batches of acceptance letters.

This year, 22,738 prospective freshmen applied to the UW, reflecting national trends of an annually increasing college applicant pool. That’s 1,478 more applicants than applied last year and roughly four times as many students needed to fill the 5,500 freshman spots available.

Applications are up by 11 percent among African Americans, 20 percent among Native Americans and 9 percent among Hispanic and Latino students, according to UW admissions officials.

Several other trends have also become apparent in this year’s freshman applicant class. For instance, 3,830 California students are considering the UW for fall 2010, 20 percent more than last year. International applications have also increased, by 25 percent.

“The California trend is clearly different,” said Philip Ballinger, assistant vice president for Enrollment for the Office of Admissions. “We understand why that’s occurring, but it is unusual. International applicants to the university continue to surprise us. They increase almost exponentially every year. And as for our resident applicants, the numbers are roughly what we expected.”

Ballinger theorized that the tuition hikes and cutbacks in enrollment at California’s public institutions may explain the 20-percent increase. He added that the growth in applications doesn’t mean non-resident students are exclusively considering UW, but that families are covering their bases in uncertain economic times.

“When there are more concerns among families about not just where are Johnny and Mary going to be admitted, but also where can we afford to send Johnny and Mary, that anxiety grows, and you see a multiplication of applications … I think that probably comes with the times. But here at the UW, all of our trends have been going up, and they’ve been going up for quite a while.”

A total of 12,718 domestic and international non-resident students applied to the UW for fall 2010. Washington state residents amounted to 10,020 of the applications.

Ballinger reasoned that the upward trend in applications can’t exclusively be attributed to the economy. He said that other factors, like the increasing value of higher education and the university’s growing prestige, are also responsible.

“The dramatic increase in out-of-state applications to the UW reflects the university’s rise in reputation. The more students learn about the UW, the more they want [to] join us,” President Mark Emmert said via e-mail. “Of course first and foremost we exist to serve Washingtonians, but the growing interest in the university from around the nation and the world shows how impressed people are with the education available at UW.”

Ballinger said that the increase in non-residents will not impact the demographics of the UW. Because of how the admissions process is structured with in-state, out-of-state and international students each allocated to their own pool, non-residents will not exceed residents.

“We’re more restrictive for international and domestic non-resident students, for example. But each of those pools acts differently,” Ballinger said. “If you take the resident pool, a much higher proportion of applicants that you admit will enroll at the UW [compared] to domestic non-residents … [Historical data] gives you a general idea of what you can expect for each type of application.”

The difficulty for the Admissions Office is in determining how many acceptance letters to send out given that only a proportion of those accepted will actually enroll. Using historical data and statistical probability, 11,000 letters were mailed in 2007 for a freshman class target of 5,300.

Prospective students have until May 1 to confirm their enrollment.

Reach reporter Celina Kareiva at news@dailyuw.com.