The class of 2010 was inaugurated into the Wesleyan community Tuesday with the arrival of freshmen for orientation week. This year saw 2,005 of 7,241 applicants admitted, 720 of which enrolled this fall, according to Office of Admission statistics.
Those receiving financial aid remains 42 percent, a number that has steadily declined from 49 percent in 2003.
“I think the competitive pressure on financial aid is tremendous,” said Senior Associate Dean of Admission Greg Pyke. “The difference between a $600 million endowment, which is what we have, and a $1 billion or multi-billion dollar endowment makes it very difficult for Wesleyan to compete [in awarding financial aid]. To be responsive to the financial realities of families with our resources is a real challenge.”
The number of students of color in the class of 2010 decreased two percentage points to 32 percent. This does not mean that fewer students of color were admitted, however; students of color comprised 38 percent of admitted applicants—up four percent from last year—but chose not to matriculate. Of the students enrolled, 15 percent identify as Asian or Asian-American, a drop of two percent, seven percent are Black or African-American, a decrease of two percent, and 10 percent are Latino or Hispanic, an increase of one percent.
Fourteen percent of students are in the first generation of their families to attend four-year colleges, up from an average of 12.25 percent the past four years.
“What we’re particularly proud of is that we were able to strengthen the diversity of this class and maintain and strengthen in some ways the academic profile of this class,” Pyke said. “People who apply to Wesleyan typically have a lot of options. People who have such a set of options and represent such a breadth of experience—that they should choose Wesleyan is something anyone should be proud of.”
For the first time in recent years, men comprise the majority of a class year, although only by one percent. According to Pyke, this is neither a significant development nor a result of any policy change by the Office of Admission.
“It’s tempting to see a significant change,” Pyke said. “It can be a difference of six or eight people, and that’s a decision the students take when they decide to enroll or not.”
According to Pyke, the trustees have advocated a 50-50 male to female balance since the 1970s.
“Technical colleges have more men in their applicant pool,” he said. “For all the liberal arts colleges, there’s a larger female applicant pool. [However,] men are slightly more likely to accept offers of admission than women. That’s how it ends up around 50-50.”
In another measure of diversity, the number of enrolled students from areas outside of New England has increased, mostly due to an influx from the Mid-Atlantic. International students remain steady at six percent. Seventy-nine percent of students offered admission live outside New England, and according to Pyke, increasing the geographic diversity of the student body remains an important goal for the University.
“There’s been a real effort over the last five to 10 years to make Wesleyan better known outside the Northeast,” Pyke said. “If you look at the South and at the West, that doesn’t just include Texas and California. We’ve had real growth from the class of 2006 to the class of 2010 of people from the West.”
Pyke also said that there has been an increase in the geographic diversity of students of color.
“There has been some concern that the majority of students of color have come predominantly from states in the Northeast, particularly New York,” he said. “I think that we’ve made real strides.”
The academic rigor of the incoming class remains in line with previous years, with SAT and ACT scores remaining constant. For the class of 2010, the median SAT score is 700 for both the verbal and math sections and the median ACT score is 30.
The class of 2010 was also evaluated by its high school coursework. Seventy-one percent took math courses through calculus, 75 percent took biology, chemistry, and physics, and 72 percent took four years of a foreign language. In all three categories, these numbers have slightly decreased since last year, although they remain higher than previous years.
“We look at each individual student and try to place them with what we know about them in their individual context—what was available to them in the context of their high school, for example—and determine if they are a good match for Wesleyan and, vice versa, if Wesleyan is a good match for them,” Pyke said.
The University received 362 more applications for admission than the previous year. Since 1996, applications have grown by 19 percent, and selectivity has increased by four percent.
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