Dartmouth received a record 18,007 applications for the Class of 2013, according to a College press release. The number reflects a 9-percent increase from last year's total of 16,538. There was a 9-percent increase in the number of early decision applicants as well. Dean of Admissions Maria Laskaris '84 had previously said unofficially that there were 17,768 applicants for the Class of 2013, The Dartmouth reported on Jan. 15, which would have been a 7.5 percent increase from last year. The College will likely accept 1,800 students during the regular admissions cycle, resulting in a final class size between 1,090 and 1,100 students.
Haiyung Zhu, a graduate student at Virginia Tech, is accused of decapitating fellow graduate student and friend, 22-year-old Xin Yang, on Jan. 8, The Washington Post reported. Zhu allegedly took a kitchen knife out of his backpack at an Au Bon Pain cafe on campus and silently cut off Yang's head, authorities told The Post. Zhu was reportedly still holding Yang's head when police arrived at the scene. Yang, who is from Beijing, had just started her graduate studies on Jan. 8. This was the first murder at Virginia Tech since Seung-Hui Cho killed 33 people in April 2007. The Jan. 8 incident was the first test of Virginia Tech's alert system, installed after the university was criticized for its delayed response to the Cho incident. Roughly 45 to 60 minutes after Yang's murder, administrators began alerting students. Some students were upset by the almost hour-long interval, but a Virginia Tech spokesperson said the response was a success, given the complicated logistics required to send out the alert.
Johns Hopkins University announced on Thursday that its 8.5-year fundraising campaign, "Knowledge for the World," had garnered more than $3.7 billion in donations, The Washington Post reported. The money will primarily go towards establishing a new business school, providing scholarships for low-income local students and funding malaria research. Johns Hopkins's fundraising effort is the second largest campaign ever launched by a U.S. college or university, after Stanford University's current campaign, which raised $3.8 billion as of August. "Knowledge for the World" is among only four campaigns that have raised $3 billion or more. More than 250,000 donors have made over 700,000 contributions to the initiative. Roughly 75 other universities, including Dartmouth, currently have fundraising objectives of $1 billion or more.
