Collegiate Times

A year after placing more than 300 freshmen in temporary housing, Virginia Tech cut down freshman enrollment with a new admissions strategy.

Mildred Johnson, director of undergraduate admissions, said last year's class produced an abnormally high percentage of accepted admission offers.

This year, the university set another new applicant record, and Johnson said they were hard pressed to meet their target for enrolling freshmen.

"There are enrollment projections that are set every year," Johnson said. "Our goal is 5,025 freshmen, so because we were very fortunate to have a higher number of students to apply than ever before, we had to be very conservative in the admissions office this year so we would not have 400 more students like we did last year."

The class of 2013 is nearly 300 students smaller than the class of 2012. Johnson said it would put less strain upon university facilities.

"It impacts the things like the classrooms, the residence halls, the dining halls. So we really needed to be closer to our goal," Johnson said.

Johnson said the admissions office decided to utilize the wait list for the first time since 2006.

"So this year, we very purposefully and strategically made offers with the intent of coming under that 5,000 mark and using our wait list appropriately to bring our enrollment to where we needed it to be," Johnson said.

Despite using the wait list, the average SAT score went up from last year.

The class of 2013 scored 1250 on average, compared to 1208 from the class of 2012.

"We wanted to use our wait list, because there are very good students on the wait list," Johnson said.

Johnson said there were some noticeable trends in the enrollment for the class of 2013.

The number of Hispanic students enrolling significantly increased, while proportions of males and females remained the same.

Hispanic students will make up five percent of the freshman class.

The class of 2013, like the university's overall population, is 55 percent male and 45 percent female.

There are currently 5,179 freshmen enrolled. Of those, 308 were accepted off the waiting list.

In an increase from last year, 70 percent of freshmen are from inside Virginia.

Those listed as white make up 77 percent of the enrollees, while Asians make up 10 percent and.

Four percent of enrollees are black.