Brown and White Vol. 129 no. 17

              The Brown and White Vol. 129 No. 17
Tuesday, November 3, 2015 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Safety first for Lehigh Transportation
Admissions changes affect 2020 acceptance rates
After a crash that caused a bus
carrying the Lehigh rowing team
to roll over on U.S. Route 22, ques-tions
were raised regarding the
Following last week’s
accident involving the
rowing team and a
university bus, the safety of
Lehigh’s bus fleet
is evaluated
By MADISON GOUVEIA
Associate Sports Editor
By FANNY CHEN
B&W Staff
Emily Hu & Liz Cornell/B&W Staff
LEFT: A Lehigh University bus arrives at Lehigh Valley Hospital — Cedar Crest to bring students back to Lehigh last Tuesday. All 18 students
were discharged the night of the accident. RIGHT: The Lehigh University athletics bus lies overturned on Route 22 after a collision with
another vehicle on Tuesday. The accident resulted in the death of the other driver and 18 injuries.
With the deadline for early deci-sion
applications approaching,
many prospective students are
wondering what plans the Office
of Admissions has for recruiting
the class of 2020.
Admission into Lehigh has
become increasingly selective, as
the acceptance rate has declined
from 34 percent to 30 percent in
the past year.
The admissions office’s main
goal this year is to have a robust
applicant pool for the class of
2020.
Lehigh received 12,854 appli-cations
last year. The admis-sions
office aims to increase that
amount by 5 percent.
To achieve this goal, Vice
Provost of Admissions J. Leon
Washington said Lehigh will
have a very “organic” admis-sions
process, meaning it aims to
attract students to apply based on
Lehigh’s face value.
“We do hard work on the ground
– building relationships, getting
our admissions counselors in
front of (prospective students),
getting our current students in
front of them, getting our alumni
in front of them,” Washington
said. “Organic growth gets people
really genuinely interested in the
institution.”
If Lehigh’s applicant pool
increases, the acceptance rate
will likely be affected. The Class
of 2018 hit overcapacity as more
students accepted their admis-sions
offers than was expected.
The overcapacity caused the
admissions office to accept fewer
students in 2015. However, the
current first-year class is also
overcapacity, revealing a need
to change the admissions office’s
predictive model.
Bruce Bunnick, director of
admissions, said that the admis-sions
office is working hard to
improve their predictive model.
“Last year, the model that we’ve
worked with in the past to pre-dict
the number of students that
will enroll yielded returns that
were beyond our expectations,”
Bunnick said. “We had made what
we thought was an appropriate
number of offers to attract a class
that would allow us to get to our
target, but it turned out to be
even better than what we expect-ed,
so we will make the necessary
adjustments for this year.”
Washington added that the past
two years of higher-than-antici-pated
yield, contrary to the lower
yield that Lehigh has historically
had, can be used to further lower
the acceptance rate. He is hoping
that the acceptance rate will fall
below 30 percent, as Lehigh will
look better as an institution if it
has a lower acceptance rate.
If the acceptance rate does go
below 30 percent, admission into
Lehigh will become much more
competitive. Washington said 90
percent of applicants who apply to
Lehigh are qualified to be admit-ted,
but they cannot all be accept-ed.
To determine which students
do get accepted, there are mul-tiple
factors that are taken into
consideration.
“We are very fortunate because
we have such wonderfully quali-safety
features of the university’s
buses. Bob Bruneio, the manag-er
of Transportation and Transit
Services, discussed Lehigh’s bus
fleet with regards to numbers,
organization and safety.
The university has a fleet of
nine buses — 10 before the crash
occurred. The fleet consists of
three 48-passenger buses, simi-lar
to school buses, one of which
was involved in the crash; four
50-to-60-passenger buses, referred
to as transit buses; and a 28-pas-senger
bus and a 20-passenger
bus, referred to by Bruneio as little
buses. In addition, the university
also uses Easton Coach buses when
transporting students across state
lines, as the university’s transpor-tation
office is not licensed to do so.
While many are familiar with
the university buses that transport
athletes between Asa Packer and
Goodman campuses, the transpor-tation
office works with a variety of
student groups. Bruneio mentioned
relationships with the Office of
Fraternity and Sorority Affairs as
well as specific Greek houses, club
sports, Student Senate and the
Office of Student Advancement,
among others.
“All of our buses across the board
are equipped the same, so we don’t
just have athletic buses, or student
buses and event buses,” Bruneio
said. “Whatever the need requires
we have the transportation to han-dle
it.”
While the office works with a
number of on-campus groups,
Lehigh Athletics is the department
that most frequently schedules bus
use for student transportation.
Director of Athletics Joe Sterrett
discussed this relationship, as well
as the recent crash, in an email to
The Brown and White.
See BUS Page 4
See ADMISSIONS Page 4
Klaudia Jazwinska/Made with Canva