summer melt
n.— «Because of overcrowding problems in previous years, the college reduced the number of offers of admission from 3,486 in 2003 to 3,366 this year. However, this year the college’s admissions office experienced an unexpected low “summer melt” of just 26 students. The summer melt refers to the number of students who initially enroll at William and Mary after being admitted and later decide to attend a different college or university. In 2003, the summer melt was 57 students. Two years ago, it was 43 students.» —“W&M makes space for crowded Class of 2008″ by Brian Whitson William & Mary News (Williamsburg, Virginia) Aug. 17, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...