Admitted freshman take a look-see

Students who may well be part of next year’s freshman class came to campus last week as part of AU’s annual Freshman Day. “Application numbers were through the roof,” Sharon Alston, director of admissions, has said about this year’s enrollment. “We currently have 13,577 freshman applications, which puts us 11.3 percent ahead of where we were at the same time last year.”

So who has been admitted to AU? The short answer: A lot of very good students from all over the country and many parts of the world. Fifty-percent were in the top 10 percent of their graduating high school class, and 68 percent ranked in the top 15 percent.

International students make up 5.2 percent of the students, with 40 percent of those coming from Europe, nearly 28 percent from Asia, 20 percent from elsewhere in the Americas, and just over 6 percent each from Africa and the Middle East.

Ethnic diversity is high—just over 21 percent—of which a quarter are African American, some 27 percent are Asian, and over 20 percent are multiracial. Half of all U.S. students come from the East Coast, with around 11 percent from the South, 7 percent from the Midwest, and 13 percent from the West and Southwest. U.S. citizens applying from homes abroad continue to make up a relatively high percentage at just over 3 percent of the total. —SA

2004 File photo