The incoming class of students for the Fall 2017 semester will be one of the brightest, largest and most fitting to the mission of Waynesburg University, said Shari Payne, vice president of enrollment at Waynesburg.
The total combined incoming freshman and transfer students for the incoming class of 2016 was 435 surpassing their initial goal of 420, said Payne.
Now, Payne said that they are on track to meet or exceed their current goal of 450 students for the incoming class for fall 2017.
The large number of incoming students is setting records not only in committed students but in other areas as well.
“We have had record number of applicants this year,” said Payne. “We have admitted a record number of students this year and our deposits are at record levels right now.”
The increased number of interested, accepted and committed students is a result of a few minor changes in the way applications are turned in and how applicants are handled.
One of these changes has affected not only Waynesburg, but schools across the country. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was open earlier; students could apply Oct. 1 rather than waiting until Jan. 1 of the new year. “We think that some students were applying earlier than they typically would have, so that they could get this information,” said Payne.
Also affecting high school students’ interest in Waynesburg is a new communication tool that has been purchased to interact with prospective students: Slate.
“Slate helps manage the contact with students better,” said Payne. “Because of that we are able to handle a bigger volume of inquiries, going out and purchasing names from students who we think would be a good fit.”
With all the effort of getting students to Waynesburg via interpersonal means, the university also gets a lot of feedback from advertising. Over the course of the last two years, the Office of Admissions has seen a dramatic response to the university’s advertising, Payne said, especially in the field of digital advertising.
The university doesn’t advertise to random students as a shot in the dark instead they target their audience to get the greatest feedback.
“We do target [advertisements], we target those to people who we think would be a good fit [at Waynesburg],” said Payne.
The targeted searches will also contain information based on geography, their interests, whether or not the students have been on campus before and also their search history on the internet.
“If they are searching for Christian colleges for example we might put an ad out there in response and get good traction,” Payne added.
Despite the incoming class being one of the largest in recent years, Payne said that there should be no issue in housing all the students, because the current incoming class will be replacing the 451 seniors that came in during the Fall 2013.
Though the university will not feel an increase in overall students, Payne hopes to continue the streak of large incoming classes for the future year to get the undergraduate population back to 1400. The class that came in during Fall 2014 had approximately 300 students, with the following class being slightly higher, said Payne. As those classes phase out, Payne said, she hopes to see the number that replaces them to be around 450.
“We are not in growth mode,” said Payne. “We are not trying to expand beyond what we were in 2013, we are trying to build back up to that point and that is about where we want to sustain. We don’t want to get much bigger than that. That is the right size for the institution. “
The Fall 2017 incoming class also contains a lot of A.B. Miller Scholarship recipients, which is the highest of the achievement awards Waynesburg presents to their students. According to the Waynesburg website, these academic scholarships are based on the combination of each applicant’s cumulative high school GPA and SAT/ACT score achievement.
“This year, compared to last year at the same time, we have 25 more deposited students from the A.B. Miller Scholarship,” said Payne. “On average thus far, they are averaging 40 points higher on the SAT, and that is already taking into account the changes in the SAT. We are attracting very bright students, which is wonderful. People really just want to come to Waynesburg. There is still another key component to making sure a student will fit in at university Admissions looks to accepting students that fit the mission of Waynesburg. We use a holistic admissions process to evaluate a students,” said Payne. “We are looking not just at test scores, not just high school curriculum, but we look at whether or not they are a good mission fit, if they have a clean disciplinary record, what do their counselors say about them, do they have leadership activities in their bios.”
All of these things together make an ideal student for Waynesburg, said Payne, and she thinks the newest class will be a valuable addition. “I think [the campus community] will be really excited about this incoming class,”said Payne.