On Monday the Class of 2009 officially became a part of the Wesleyan community as the new freshman class arrived for orientation week. According to the official profile produced by the Office of Admissions, 1,893 of the 6,879 applicants were admitted, and 715 enrolled this fall.

“I think the most striking thing is the dramatic success in returning to the kind of representation of students of color that we aim for at Wesleyan,” said Senior Associate Dean of Admission Greg Pyke. “Last year, it was more difficult, but we asked alumni, students, and faculty for help and the change has been gratifying for us and a point of pride for the whole community.”

The number of students of color increased to 34 percent, three percent higher than last year’s class. Seventeen percent of the class identifies as Asian or Asian-American, 9 percent is Black or African-American, and 9 percent is Latino or Hispanic. Seven percent of the students of color are also international students.

“We do not have specific numbers to fill,” Pyke said. “We do have goals, for instance, like wanting more students of color, more from outside of New England, and another important goal is to have students with the strongest academic preparation. A more telling measure of that, rather than the SAT and class rank, is to look at the course work taken in high school.”

Like many other admissions boards, extra-curricular activities served as an additional factor.

“Another important goal is to include strong representation of leadership and the character traits developed and experience gained in high school,” Pyke said. “We look at four things: students who have served as presidents of their student government, students who have been captains of their varsity sports teams, students who have served as editors of their school papers, or students who have been judged by a dean as having outstanding leadership capacity in another form.”

The freshman class participated in rigorous high school programs: 74 percent took math courses through calculus, 79 percent took biology, chemistry, and physics, and 78 percent took four years of a foreign language.

SAT scores remain steady for the Class of 2009. The median math and verbal section scores are each 700. The median ACT score is 30, one point less than last year. Of the 50 percent of high schools that report class rank, 71 percent of the incoming freshmen placed in the top ten percent of their class.

In terms of the geographical breakdown, the number of students coming from outside of the New England area increased, especially the amount coming from the southern and western parts of the country.

“One of the other things we aimed for which is somewhat related to diversity was increasing the number of students that are the first to attend a four year college in their families,” Pyke said. “This pertains to economic and social diversity.”

In the Class of 2009, 13 percent of students are the first-generation to attend a four-year college in their families. This represents an increase of 3 percent from last year.

Wesleyan received 300 more applications this year than for the class of 2008, a sharp contrast from last year’s declining application numbers.

“We’re happy to see the total number go up,” Pyke said. “A lot of it is related to the increase in applications of students of color. This is the result of not only admissions, but alumni and current students of color, and students concerned with diversity. They did a lot of work last year and their work helped in putting together the Class of 2009.”