Geneseo welcomed a new freshman class of 1,353 students out of 9,188 applicants this August. According to Geneseo’s website, the incoming students are comprised of 291 transfer students and 56 graduate students. The incoming freshman class of 2019 is significantly larger than the class of 2018, which had 1,180 undergraduates.
The academic class averages are consistent with past years. Both years’ mean high school grade point averages for the past two years is 93. Thirty-two valedictorians and salutatorians are part of this incoming class.
Freshman Jessica Looks expressed her satisfaction with her academic experience thus far. “All my classes here have challenged me,” Looks said. “I feel like I’m learning things I can actually apply to my life, instead of just random information.”
“I chose Geneseo partly because of its beautiful campus, but also because it has a great reputation for competitive academics,” freshman Rebecca Hoppy said.
The class of 2019 upholds Geneseo’s rigorous academic standards. “[The class] represents some of the most promising young minds in New York State and beyond,” senior communications manager and media relations director David Irwin wrote in an article on the Geneseo website.
According to the same article, college president Denise Battles spoke favorably of the incoming class at her first faculty convocation. “We look forward to an exciting year in which we will acknowledge and build upon our impressive record of past accomplishments as we move forward to define our future,” Battles said.
For years, Geneseo has seen class sizes with more women than men. The class of 2018 was a statistical anomaly—its male members outnumbered its female members 53 percent to 47 percent. The class of 2019 reversed that trend with a strong disparity between sexes; the class consists of 37 percent men and 63 percent women. The diversity—like the academic record—remained consistent with past years.
As with the class of 2018, 21 percent of this fall’s freshmen are multicultural.
“My favorite thing is just how friendly people are here,” Looks said. “I’m from downstate and in the city, no one holds the door for you and here, everyone does. It’s such a nice cultural change.”
“Everyone on this campus is so friendly and helpful,” Hoppy added.