The skinny on ‘13

You might be wondering why I’ve been strangely silent the last month in SethAllenSays-land about the incoming class. It’s not because the admission office and I were on vacation (though that’s a tempting thought!) but rather because we activated our waitlist during the month of May.

So what does the incoming class look like? You remember from earlier posts that our planned for first-year class number was 385. Currently, we’re at 383 students and if history repeats itself we’ll likely be at 375 members in the Class of ‘13 by the time September rolls around. Coupled with a strong pool of enrolling transfer students, we seem to be on track with our enrollment this year.

For those of you who want the numbers, here’s a partial profile of the first-year class as of June 12, 2009:

· 66% of new students reporting rank are in the top 10% of their high school class.
· The first-year class has the same male/female ratio as last year's class at 46%/54%.
· Domestic students of color make up 25% of the entering first-year class.
· International students make up 13% of the incoming first-year class.
· Incoming students are from 43 states and 29 countries.

On a related note, I was happy to see that The Chronicle of Higher Education picked up an op-ed by the president of Grinnell College, Russell K. Osgood, on the need to fix the FAFSA. Economic conditions this year may have exacerbated many families’ need but it’s clear that for higher education to remain viable for most families, the current system of determining need must change.