The May 1 College Decision Day is quickly approaching and in a few short months Saint Anselm College will welcome these prospective students to campus. With freshman class sizes soaring within the past couple of years, questions of that pattern repeating itself are looming. Saint Anselm Admissions has been working diligently to navigate the struggles with FAFSA and how it coincides with student acceptance numbers. 

Changes in the FAFSA form as well as a delay in the arrival of FAFSA information to schools, questions of changing the deadline were not an outrageous thought to the Admissions Office. Though the changes can make the admissions process more difficult, “we are currently still holding our May 1 decision deadline,” said Steven Goetsch, Vice President for Enrollment. 

Even though Admissions is set on maintaining the date of the decision deadline, “we review this decision almost daily…but this is open to change,” said Goetsch. If any prospective students and their families are struggling with meeting the deadline, “we will certainly work with any family that requests an extension,” Goetsch said. 

Given the time left before decision day, concrete numbers of prospective families are still up in the air. Since data is constantly changing and the numbers are changing daily, it may be irresponsible for the Admissions Office to share exact numbers of decided students with the college right now. 

Even though the number of students that have committed is still unknown, Goetsch said that “over 4,400 students have applied to be part of the Class of 2028.” The number of students interested in being a part of the incoming class is “an application record for Saint Anselm College,” said Goetsch. 

A soaring number of applicants, beating last year’s “application record with just over 4,160 students applying,” Goetsch said, will likely see a similar class size to the previous years. As of right now, “approximately 78% [of students] have been accepted,” Goetsch said. After May 1 numbers will be official and allowed to be disclosed, although there were about 40-50 Early Decision student applicants, which “is the same every year,” Goetsch said. 

The incoming class includes first time college students, transfer students, and international students. As explained by Goetsch, these numbers change daily and frequently so exact numbers are still not disclosed, but their estimated “goal is 555 first year students,” Goetsch said. Similar numbers were seen with the class sizes of the Class of 2026 and the Class of 2027, going beyond this year’s estimated goal of 555 admitted students. Since the recent classes of first year students had numbers beyond this year’s goal, “the college has a plan for our goal and if we exceed our goal,” Goetsch said. 

Of these 555 first year students, the Office of Admissions has an estimated goal of “40 students to transfer in,” Goetsch said. The grade levels of these transfer students will vary, as well as the number of transfer students that will commute to the college or remain on campus. 

The college also continues to see numbers of international students join the Saint Anselm community within the incoming classes, as seen in previous years of first year students. Currently, the number of international students “changes daily and we will not know until after deadlines pass so I cannot fully answer,” exactly how many will be admitted for the fall semester, Goetsch said.  

With a record number of applicants and the increasing class sizes that the college has been seeing in the past couple of years, the influx of numbers must have a cause. According to Goetsch, the soaring numbers are due to “increased marketing, hard work from the Admission and Financial Aid team, new Academic and Athletic programming, and the support of our Anselmian community.” With the overwhelming support of the different departments, the college has sparked interest in the thousands of prospective students. If this level of support continues in the future, the college could likely see similar numbers of interested students in the coming years.

With the highest number of applicants the college has ever seen, Saint Anselm will welcome another large class to join the community. Of the thousands of possible Anselmians to join the college, May 1 will officially welcome those who decide to commit to the Saint Anselm experience.