Cornell College has achieved a new record enrollment of 1,191 students.
Currently, the college is evaluating the merits of carefully planned enrollment growth to 1,300 or more students, said James W. Brown, interim president of the college.
“We will be formally celebrating the completion of our record-setting Extraordinary Opportunities campaign in a few weeks,” he said. “The support of alumni and friends is enabling us to enhance our already well respected academic and co-curricular programs as well as our beautiful historic hilltop campus. Our strong enrollment is compelling evidence that students and their parents are willing to invest in educational quality and opportunity.”
Contributing to the record enrollment are 384 new students on campus this year, 343 of them first-year students. Cornell received a record number of applicants for the eighth consecutive year. Students from all 50 states and more than a dozen nations applied for admission—4,184 in all. This is Cornell’s most diverse class, with 23 percent domestic students of color and another five percent international students. Additionally, the new first year class ranks among the academically strongest in the college’s history.
“Cornell is an institution distinguished by the quality of relationships between students and faculty and staff,” said Jonathan Stroud, vice president for enrollment. “In kind, the enrollment staff works very hard to get to know each applicant for admission personally. We feel we were successful in doing so, though we are being increasingly challenged by the growing number of applicants. We are delighted by the engaging mix of interests, backgrounds, and talents which our new class of students will be bringing to the Hilltop. Cornell’s appeal as one of the nation’s finest, most distinctive, and affordable selective colleges is clear, especially during the current economic downturn.”
Cornell College is consistently recognized among the best liberal arts colleges in the nation, including being featured among Loren Pope’s Colleges That Change Lives.