Each fall, a new freshman class arrives on the hilltop to bring something new to the Saint Anselm community. The incoming class of 2021 is no different, coming together to make up a group that is unlike any that has come before.

The class of 2021 is the biggest class on campus with 546 traditional first-time freshmen. There were also an additional twenty transfer students that joined the three other classes. For comparison, the class of 2020 welcomed 518 freshmen, the class of had 528 freshmen, and the class of 2018 had 523 freshmen. Although this number may be bigger than in the past, Eric Nichols, Vice President for Enrollment and Dean of Admissions, said that a class of this size is not far from what was expected, and is no cause for concern.

“We were budgeting for 515,” Nichols said about the incoming class. “What’s always a good process is that you conservatively budget a number for students, and then you hope for more than that. You can run into problems if you’re budgeting at the number you want to get and you come up a little bit short, it can have adverse effects. So, the 515 was the original goal, however our expectation all along was to try to bring in as close to 525 students as possible.”

But even with the extra twenty or so students on top of the expected 525, Nichols wants to assure everyone that this will not cause problems concerning housing in the future. This year there were no forced triples on the female side, and eighteen triples on the male side.

Also contributing to the size of the class is the number of students that don’t return every year. Saint Anselm College has a retention rate of 88 percent, which means that 12 percent of students do not come back the following year due to a variety of reasons.

“Inevitably what happens is there’ll some students that will make other plans and decide not to come back after first semester, or kids study abroad, and other spaces open up,” Nichols said. “So, that problem will slowly alleviate itself, but I don’t see it as a long-term problem.”

As for next year, Nichols said that the college is currently at around 1930 students, and to avoid a true housing dilemma, plans to stay around 2000. He said that the expected average for incoming classes will likely stay around 530 students.

In addition to size, the class of 2021 brings a lot of firsts for the school. This class is the most diverse class ever at Saint Anselm College, with 12 percent, or 66 students, who identify themselves as “racially diverse”. This beats the previous high of ten percent diversity in a new class.  “We’ve been intentionally trying to enroll a more diverse class, in terms of ethnicity, as well as geography,” Nichols said.

These efforts appeared to have worked, both ethnically and geographically. This year the school welcomed six international students, compared to one international student the year before. These six students come from five different countries including Canada, Vietnam, Denmark, Italy, and Nicaragua. Nichols credits this increase in international students partially to the section of admissions dedicated wholly to international recruitment. The school is primarily looking into more recruitment effort in Latin America and Southeast Asia, as well as a little recruitment effort in Europe.

Recruiters at Saint Anselm also succeeded in terms of athletics. With 149 incoming student athletes, this is the most athletic incoming class in the last seven years. Some of these student athletes include the international students.

Other firsts coming along with the class of 2021 include academics and gender. Typically, the average class at Saint Anselm is 60 percent female and 40 percent male. This year however, the class has a makeup of 56 percent female and 44 percent male. That makes the class of 2021 the most gender balanced class this college has had in the last seven years. Academically, Nichols said that the incoming freshmen have the strongest average grade point average the college has seen, with an average incoming GPA of 3.28.

Besides the new international students, the national breakdown of the incoming class is much more on average with past years.

“88 percent of the students are from New England,” Nichols said. “This year is no different with 55 percent of those from Massachusetts, and New Hampshire is typically around 20 percent.”

The next most popular states in terms of enrollment are Maine, Rhode Island, with New York and Connecticut tied in fifth place.

“I only see positives with this class,” Nichols said. “Having more diverse faces in the classroom, from different backgrounds, from different areas of the country, it can be a net positive. It’s all been great.”

Overall, Nichols said that Saint Anselm is doing very well in an ever increasingly competitive college enrollment process. The average member of the class of 2021 applied to nine schools, and got into seven of them.

“Students have a lot of great choices, there’s a lot of great schools out there,” Nichols said. “They can only choose one, and that in of itself is the definition of competition. But I’m proud of the results we’ve had, and it’s because of the great work of everyone around the community to enroll these great classes. “

Coming in with so many firsts and broken records, the freshmen class of 2021 is sure to be one to watch out for over the next four years.