A look at the Class of 2012

Melody Moberg

This September, a new group of freshman will join our tight-knit campus community. What kinds of students and individuals can current Lawrentians expect to meet?
Admissions counselors went through 2,620 freshmen applicants and 128 transfer student applications. For the third year in a row, the applicant pool has set a new record for total applications received. 1,495 freshmen were accepted. Approximately 380 freshmen and 30 transfer students have decided to attend. Admissions is still in the process of admitting transfer students. At least 36 students are first generation college students.
Students are coming from 33 states, including the U.S. Virgin Islands and Hawaii. Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota have the largest contingents, followed by California and New York. This is the first year in which less than 30 percent of freshmen hail from Wisconsin.
Students from 13 Nations compose the class of 2012, including Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Ecuador, Ghana, Jamaica, Nepal, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden and Vietnam. The largest contingent represented is China. Admissions expects additional international commitments which have been delayed by distance.
There will be 227 females (59.2 percent) and 156 males (40.7 percent). Lawrence generally has a pretty even male-to-female split, recently with less than 55 percent of the class composed of women. Until now, admissions hasn’t made any special effort to achieve gender balance in the class.
Like most Lawrentians, incoming students are interested in all academic areas of study offered. English, biology, business/economics, psychology and history are the top five most frequently cited interests in the college. Music performance is the most popular interest in the conservatory. Students from the incoming class are very engaged in clubs and organizations and appear “ready to join student organizations and maybe even create a few new ones.”
292 are Bachelor of Arts students, 38 are Bachelor of Music students and 53 seek a double-degree.
This year, Lawrence received 64 applications from Admission Possible, a non-profit organization which helps promising low-income students obtain admission to college. They service 1,200 students in public high schools and charter schools in the Twin Cities area, offering pre-college preparation courses. In 2007, Lawrence became one of the charter consortium colleges for Admission Possible. Four students from the program have decided to attend, two of whom won the Gates Millennium Scholarship. This will be the first group of Admission Possible students to attend Lawrence University.
Another organization Admissions has recently become involved with is the College Horizons program. The organization was founded in 1993 by Dr. Whitney Laughlin, a friend of Dean of Admissions Steve Syverson. College Horizons is a pre-college workshop for Native American, Pacific Islander and Alaskan native students. It provides a five-day ‘crash course’ in preparing these students for college admission. This summer, Lawrence will be a host school, hosting 86 students and 71 faculty members from around the country from June 27 to July 3.
This year, Lawrence also received four applications from College Horizons. Lawrence’s first College Horizons student will be matriculating in the fall.