The incoming class of 2022 has a record number of students: 1013. This represents a dramatic increase over last year’s incoming class size of 810, a 20% increase.
“This year’s incoming freshman class is incredibly diverse with students coming from all over the country and all over the world from many different backgrounds and cultures,” said Jackie Williams, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions. “We are proud of the overall diversity, as well as the academic talent that this class is bringing to Stevens.”
Exact information on the makeup of the class of 2022 will not be available until the middle of October, according to the Office of Institutional Research.
However, the makeup of the applicants and some preliminary demographic information was noted at a recent President’s Leadership Council Meeting. This year, 9265 students applied to Stevens, an 11.2 percent increase from last year’s amount of 8335. Other demographic categories, including the number of females, males, Hispanics, in-state, and out-of-state residents saw similar increases. However, the two categories had less applicants this year than last year: African-Americans with a 6.4% decrease to 482 applicants and international students with a 2.4% decrease to 1125 applicants.
This year, Stevens decreased its acceptance rate to 41.2%, a decrease of 2.5% with a yield (the amount of accepted applicants enrolling) of 27.1%, a 6.2% increase compared to last year. Multiple demographic categories saw increases in students submitting deposits to attend Stevens, with males, underrepresented minorities, and international students seeing the biggest increase, each with a percent increase of over 40% in each category compared to last year.
The number of females saw the lowest increase of 26%. The large increase in students deciding to enroll in Stevens was unexpected.
“Historical data and trends indicated that the class would be smaller,” said Williams. “However, Stevens is certainly growing in many ways, so we were happy to see this year’s growth in the class.”
Each department has made their own efforts to accommodate the largest class in Stevens history.
One of the first interactions the incoming class has with Stevens is through orientation, which is primarily run by the Office of Student Life. The only major challenge to Orientation as a result of the large incoming class was to determine what rooms to host the events in.
“We’ll be doing more presentations and events in Canavan so that we can accommodate the entire class together,” said Associate Dean of Students Kristie Damell, “[we also] reworked the schedule to ensure we were able to hold multiple sessions in multiple classrooms.”
The general schedule for orientation will be similar to past years, with one major addition: a new welcome event in Canavan with the entire class together. This event allows students to meet various leaders and staff members including the Peer Leader team, RAs, and student affairs stuff. “[Students will also] learn a new Stevens dance!” Damell added.
Though the general schedule remains the same, current students looking at the schedule will notice that two past large-scale orientation events are not on it: the Luau and the Summer Games. However, this change was not due to the large incoming class size.
“[The luau and the summer games] were essentially replaced with something pretty similar earlier in the year as we were developing the schedule,” said Damell. For the Luau, Damell noted that the event was a form of cultural appropriation. “I wanted to move away from that and have a different type of celebration,” she stated.
Replacing the luau will be a New York City-style street fair, an event that was a part of orientation several years ago. The street fair will share aspects of the luau including performances and a DJ, but also include some new aspects — including three food trucks. For the summer games, the event will be replaced with the Play Fair.
“Summer games was always an event that we wanted to make more effective and make sure that it was inclusive of everyone,” said Damell on why they replaced the Summer Games. However, the new Play Fair will still share many aspects of the Summer Games including teams colors, fun, and competition. Orientation will continue just as it has in the past despite the large incoming class.
In a broader scope, Student Life is also equipped to [handle] the largest incoming class in Stevens history.
“Student Life is in a great place to be able to accommodate the incoming class,” said Damell.
Last July, the Office of Student Life hired Danielle Maxson, who will serve in a new full-time Student Life Advisor position. Notably, for incoming freshmen, Maxson will facilitate Stevens LEADS, a leadership program that “empower[s] individuals and members of student organizations to become involved in various facets of campus and community life” in which many freshmen participate. Maxson will also serve as an advisor for Entertainment Committee and other on-campus organizations.
Additionally, Malcolm McDaniel, Associate Director for Fraternity and Sorority Life, is working to meet the increased interest in Greek life by overseeing the expansion of Alpha Phi Alpha and Sigma Psi Zeta, two culturally-based Greek organizations, to campus this upcoming semester.
To accommodate the large incoming class, the Office of Residence Life sent an email to primarily returning sophomores who were assigned to live in Jonas Hall that they would be assigned to rooms in Stevens Leased Housing due to “a very successful year recruiting new students,” said Trina Ballantyne, Dean of Residence Life, in an email to all students impacted by the change. “This larger class necessitates a change in your housing assignment to accommodate our new first-year students in on-campus housing.”
The Office of Residence Life did not reply to an email requesting for a formal comment regarding the incoming class of 2022.
Academically, each school at Stevens has been working to accommodate the large incoming class with its own approach.
The Schaefer School of Engineering & Science (SES) has been working hard making changes to offer the same experience to incoming freshmen as previous freshmen have experienced in the past.
Kishore Pochiraju, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the School of Engineering and Science, said, “We hope to maintain the Stevens signature small class experience.” To accomplish this, SES has increased the number of sections offered for multiple classes and hired faculty in both tenure and teaching tracks. Outside of teaching, SES has recruited staff to help with advising, international experiences, program and course selection, and improving the student experience.
In a more narrow focus, both the Computer Science and Engineering Departments in the School of Engineering and Science, which comprises the majority of the students at Stevens, have received changes over the summer.
The Computer Science Department has streamlined the core requirements for undergraduates in Computer Science to three courses. “[This] enabling effective use of their limited but growing teaching capacity,” said Pochiraju. With the limited teaching capacity, the department is actively looking to hire more faculty members and recently hired five new members this summer. With the growing number of faculty, Pochiraju states that the department will be “more flexible” and give students an opportunity to take courses at various times of the day.
The Freshman Engineering Design Spine, a course central to all Engineering students, has received a facelift and major changes from past years. The courses have been redesigned with new course materials and new robot hardware and have been re-equipped and refurbished with new tools and kits. Pochiraju wants to keep the design spine courses well-equipped and of high quality himself.
“I am personally holding an instructor training session to review the course materials, new robot kits, and to communicate the expectation of a quality instruction and student experiences in the lab,” said Pochiraju. In addition, each Design Lab course in the design spine now has two dedicated locations, allowing two sections to be taught at the same time allowing the design spine to keep the classes capped at 24 students — in line with the “Stevens signature small class experience.”
In contrast to the School of Engineering and Science, the School of Business has not made any large-scale changes to accommodate to the large incoming class. Ann Murphy, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the School of Business, highlights that despite the large incoming class, the business program at Stevens is small relative to most top business programs.
“It’s a good balance,” said Murphy, “we are small enough to maintain personal relationships with each student, but by being a bit bigger, we have good critical mass to offer unique academic programs.”
Murphy also emphasized the “personalized services” that the Business Student Support Center provides and praised them for their efforts. “The [Business Support Center] staff does incredible outreach to ensure students are truly becoming a part of the Stevens community,” said Murphy. However, the School of Business is making one change similar to the School of Engineering: hiring more faculty members.
Increasing the class size is a goal of the Stevens Strategic Plan. Stevens aspires to have an average class size of roughly 1000 students per year by Fall 2022, with SAT percentiles of 1300 and 1470 — a goal they have already reached. While Stevens did not hit their strategic goal of a 35% acceptance rate, admissions and other departments at Stevens are still working towards the goals set forth by the Strategic Plan. “The Admissions Office will continue to work hard to achieve the goals set forth by the University and by the strategic plan,” said Williams. “Each year, we work to improve all processes and to enroll a talented and diverse class. I look forward to another successful year ahead!”
Photo by Jon Carlsson
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