As the May 1 deadline approaches, some 3,700 high school seniors must decide whether or not to accept Geneseo's offer of admission and become a part of the Geneseo class of 2015.
Last year, Geneseo admitted its strongest incoming class on record in terms of both mean SAT score and number of students ranking in the top 10 percent of their high school class.
Although data profiling the class of 2015 will not be available for several months, Director of Admissions Kristine Shay stated in an email that "this year's [applicant] pool was somewhat stronger than last year's."
"We are hoping for a similar profile to last year when all is said and done, and at this point are right on track with the number of deposits we are seeing," Shay wrote.
Shay wrote that she expects this year's yield (the percentage of accepted students who matriculate) to be "very similar" to last year's yield of 27 percent. The target class size of the class of 2015 will be consistent with past incoming freshman classes as well, at about 1,000 students.
According to Director of Transfer Admissions and Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions James Clar, next year's freshman class will mark a continuation in the increasing caliber of the Geneseo student body – a trend that he said has become increasingly noticeable over the last two decades.
"I think we are finding that we have evolved over the last 10 or 15 years," Clar said.
"We have fallen into this niche of a small, elite private school option, but within the public sector."
Clar said that this categorization specifically has been perpetuated by the increase in Geneseo students who have gone on to pursue post-secondary degrees. Last year, the office of admissions calculated that nearly 44 percent of all Geneseo students entered a post-secondary degree program immediately after graduation – a number that is expected to rise this year.
"[For Geneseo students] this isn't the stopping point anymore," Clar said. "We have gone from 10 to 12 percent of our students going into graduate programs, to almost 50 percent of our students immediately [entering a graduate program after graduation]."
Clar said that this increase has had the dual effect of garnering both a student body and a faculty that is continually becoming more academically driven.
"Students aren't here for anything other than prepping themselves for their next step," Clar said. "I think that's the direction we're headed."