Ohio State’s freshman class sets records for diversity, academics

Dylan Weaver
Wed, 19 Nov 2014 06:25:17 +0000
Area, Campus, Local, National, News, diversity, Ohio State freshman class, Ohio State OSU, OSU freshman, test scores

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The 2014-15 Enrollment Report at Ohio State showed that students finishing up their first semester of college are part of a record-setting class in the area of diversity.

The 2014 freshman class, across all OSU campuses, continued the yearly progression of growth set in the original goals of the 2010 enrollment plan, said Dolan Evanovich, vice president for strategic enrollment planning.

“OSU reviews and sets goals for enrolment every five years,” he said. “The university is on its way to exceeding the goals from 2010 and we are already in talks about future goals for the 2015 plan.”

The 2014-15 Enrollment Report showed that this year’s freshman class at OSU came from a pool of 42,791 applicants.

“Our goal in the 2010 enrolment report was to maintain 40,000 applicants a year by 2015,” said OSU spokeswoman Amy Murray.

The enrolment report also showed that 61 percent of those applicants were in the top 10 percent of their classes. And 95 percent ranked in the top 25 percent of their classes.

The freshman class of 2014 added 9,897 freshmen across all OSU campuses with 7,024 freshman students enrolled at OSU’s main campus in Columbus, according to the enrollment report.

“This year’s class breaks several records,” Evanovich said. “It is made up of a 50 percent male and 50 percent female ratio of students. Of those students, 18 percent of them are students of color. That is the highest percent of students of color in a class in OSU’s history.”

The freshman class has also helped OSU set records as an entire student body in diversity. In addition to undergraduate, graduate and professional students at OSU, 11,216 minority students help make up the total 64,868 enrolled at OSU, Evanovich said.

“This year’s freshman class is made up of 70 percent Ohio residents, 22 percent out-of-state students and 8 percent international students,” Murray said.

The freshman class also has better average ACT and SAT scores than the previous year with ACT scores up to 28.8 in 2014 from 28.5 in 2013. Average SAT scores went up to 1269 in 2014 from 1256 in 2006, according to the enrollment report.

“I think the most important thing to take away from this is it is a great university success story,” Evanovich said. “It shows that the OSU brand is in high demand and that people want to be here.”

OSU is also retaining more students than in years past.

“First-year student retention of the class entering in 2013 increased to 94 percent,” Murray said. “The graduation rates climbed to a record 84 percent in six years and 59 percent in four years.”

Though some students said diversity can be a good thing, some worry OSU might become unobtainable for graduating high school seniors in Ohio.

“Diversity is great,” said Shane Work, a third-year in civil engineering. “I just hope it doesn’t become too hard for the average Ohio high school senior to make it to this campus.”

Still, Evanovich said Ohio students will always be able to get into OSU branch campuses if not main campus.

“OSU’s main campus will always remain a competitive place in regards to admission,” he said. “Our branch campuses have open admission, making the first steps to an OSU degree obtainable to every high school senior in Ohio.”