Purdue News
Purdue News
Purdue University's fall enrollment, up 559 to 35,715 on the West Lafayette campus, is good news, especially during this time of changing demographics and intense competition for high-caliber students. We also are pleased with the quality of the incoming first-semester students, with the average student in the upper 25 percent of the high-school class. The average SAT score at Purdue also increased for this group, and is 89 points above the national average of 1016.
But these numbers tell only part of the story. These numbers represent hard work and a sophisticated, caring approach to recruiting and retaining students.
First and foremost, recruitment involves more than simply going to high schools and talking to students. It really involves tremendous collaboration and cooperation among admissions staff, financial aid staff, housing personnel, the Registrar's office, the Bursar's office, all the academic schools and many, many alumni and friends of Purdue.
It is important, too, to point out that this collaborative and cooperative effort does not just happen here in West Lafayette; it happens systemwide, where our enrollment also grew by 920 students to 64,700. The effort is constant, and it takes dedicated effort from people who care about their institutions and their students.
Equal amounts of attention, energy and dedication are devoted to retaining students once they arrive on campus. Purdue's philosophy of caring for students from the moment we recruit them to helping them achieve academic success, to graduate, to gain employment and to communicate with them after graduation, is vital not only to their success but to our overall success.
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
