While it may seem that the number of squirrels on campus is holding steady, that is not quite the case for the number of students in Albion College’s 2013 graduating class.
The final number of first year students is 434, down from a 30-year average of 490 students, according to Kevin Kropf, director of admission. Thirty-two students transferred from other colleges or universities, above the number that was expected.
“I think going into the year, the 434 is below where we wanted to be,” Kropf said. “But again, some of the challenges with the economy and where our applications were—we worked really hard to get to 434.”
Of 1,800 applicants, 79 percent were admitted to Albion; 31 percent of those admitted chose to attend Albion, a yield in line with historical numbers, according to Kropf.
Although the overall number of students has decreased, the number of international students has more than quadrupled from four to 32 students—something that Kropf attributes to the hiring of Lewis Cardenas, ’02, the college’s first international recruiter.
“We were very aggressive with our follow-up with students over the course of the summer,” Kropf said. “We were trying to get in contact with them as much as possible and to work with students who expressed an interest to realize that they had some choices at that point and we wanted to make sure that choice was Albion.”
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