With the enormous increase in admission numbers this year, Dean of Admission Ray Brown said the university is going to need to figure out a more efficient application method that will work better in the future.

According to a university news release, TCU received 18,903 applications in 2011, compared to 13,852 in 2010 and 11,730 in 2009. This represents an overall increase of 36.5 percent.

Chancellor Victor Boschini was out of town and unable to be reached for comment.

“I think we got a few too many [applications] to handle this year,” Brown said.

According to Brown, the admission office is knocking at the door of 19,000 [applicants], which is an enormous increase in any year.

“We had to rethink everything we do,” he said. “Our primary goal this summer is to sort of wipe the slate clean and start over to figure out a model that will work better.”

With this in mind, Brown said the admission team has decided to visit some other universities this summer to see how they work their application process.

“We are very labor-intensive in our review process,” he said. “And I fear that those days may be over.”

The application process may have to become less personal, Brown said. And although that is something he said he hoped would not happen, he said he was not feeling confident.

The major rise in applications can be attributed to a convergence of multiple aspects, Brown said. Brown said this increase has been from the university’s efforts to improve the physical appearance along with the efforts from the university to create personal relationships between students and faculty.

“When you put all of that together and throw in the benefit of athletics teams, which bring in all sorts of national publicity, it just makes for the perfect storm,” he said.

While going through the college process, John Novalis, a freshman environmental earth resources major, said he first recognized TCU for its football success, but the university’s personalized recruitment also helped him make his decision.

“What truly attracted me was during my application process they sent me copious emails and letters in the mail,” Novalis said.

He said the university never hesitated to contact him or see how his thought process was going with admission.

“They just seemed very personal and very interested in having me as a student here,” he said.

The university has also seen a rise in the past year for out-of-state and in-state applications. According to the release, there has been a 39.5 percent increase in out-of-state applications. In particular, the state of California saw a 102.9 percent jump this year in applications, according to the release.

“I think most people would agree that it would be nice to have as varied group of students as one could possibly muster,” Brown said in regard to out-of-state applicants. “That is why our staff visits 35 states a year and about 20 different countries.”

They want to provide students with a college experience that is as varied and diverse as they can possibly craft.

As of Monday, Brown said they have more than 700 hopefuls on the wait list.

“We are very thankful for it,” he said. “But I don’t hold out a great deal of hope for students on the wait list.”