DePauw welcomes most diverse freshman class in school history
GREENCASTLE -- DePauw University will welcome its 172nd entering class -- the Class of 2014 -- this Saturday.
A total of 617 first-year students will arrive with their families to move in to their residence halls and participate in the opening convocation with President Brian W. Casey and the DePauw faculty.
The University will also be greeting 13 transfer students and 12 exchange students, bringing the total of new undergraduates to 642.
"This is always an exciting time of year on campus," says Dan Meyer, vice president for admission and financial aid.
DePauw received a record 5,346 applications for this fall, an increase of 13 percent from the year before and up about 25 percent over the past three years.
"It is clear that DePauw is increasingly perceived by young scholars as a nationally recognized liberal arts college that offers them the opportunity to interact with professors in small classes while enjoying the experience of being part of a residential campus," Meyer said. "We're looking forward to bringing these talented new students into the DePauw community."
The new students come from 46 states and 36 countries. Fourteen percent of the Class of 2014 come from countries besides the United States (32 are from China, 11 from India, 10 from Vietnam, five from Japan, four from Ghana and two each from Mexico, Germany and Ecuador), and 20 percent of the incoming class are non-white U.S. citizens, meaning that 34 percent of the new class (213 students) come from multicultural backgrounds, the highest total in DePauw's history.
Twenty-one percent of the incoming undergraduates are first generation college students, in other words, no one in their immediate family has graduated from college before. A total of 23 percent of the enrolling students have an alumni tie to DePauw.
The median high school grade point average of the Class of 2014 is 3.61 (up three-tenths of one percent from last year) and the median class rank is 90 percent. Eighty-nine of the incoming scholars maintained straight "A" averages throughout their high school careers.
For the fourth consecutive year, DePauw University was listed among the "Top Producers of Fulbright Awards for U.S. Students" in a chart published in October 2009 in the Chronicle of Higher Education.