Admissions is eager to communicate more regularly and efficiently with the Saint Mary’s community, and staff and faculty can expect additional updates on recruitment and enrollment progress in the coming weeks and months. At this time, below is a brief update that Michael McMahon, vice president for enrollment management, shared with the Board of Trustees.
Under the leadership of Tim Gossen, Ed.D., senior director of admission and dean of summer programs, and through the invested work and collaboration of many stakeholders, recruitment at the College has made significant strides over the past several months. As of the middle of January, the College admission team has been consistently 20% ahead in first-year deposits year-over-year. While we have a long way to go until the end of the cycle, we have reason to be cautiously optimistic. If the trends continue, we will welcome a significantly larger recruitment class in fall 2023 than fall 2022.
Those working to address enrollment challenges in the Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs have been every bit as devoted as well. By way of example, many faculty and staff worked tirelessly during the week between the Christmas and New Year holidays to get new and continuing students registered for spring semester classes.
In January, we welcomed about 35% more new students for our internal SGPP programs than we did last spring. This news must be nuanced, as a good bit of the year-over-year growth came from a new initiative with a reduced tuition rate. For overall enrollment, our SGPP credits were about 5% below the budget reforecast from October 2022.
We look forward to providing regular updates in the future. Thanks for the work you do to contribute to our enrollment growth, for all of us play a role in this important effort.
