For the second fall in a row, the incoming freshman class has continued to rise in numbers across the WSU system.
This fall semester, the WSU Pullman campus saw a 2.4% increase in new incoming freshmen, admitting 4,350 students. In contrast, the 2023 fall semester saw a 6.5% increase in new freshmen, the largest incoming freshman class since 2019, Saichi Oba, enrollment management Vice Provost, said.
As the university moves further away from the pandemic, there is hope on the administrative level that enrollment will continue to rise in the coming semesters.
“I think [the freshman increase] is an outgrowth of the overall recovery that we’re seeing in the post-COVID era,” said Admissions Director Andrew Brewick. “I think it’s important to remember that the type of institution that COVID most impacted were large, research flagship institutions in rural towns. So, of course, WSU Pullman hits all those different metrics.”
Oba said the sharp increase in first-year students in fall 2023 was largely due to the University being included in the Common App, which introduced over 30,000 new applications for the first time in WSU history.
This fall, WSU was on track to have more first-year students than the previous fall. Due to this year’s FAFSA delay, applications and confirmations slowed down around December and January, Oba said.
The University has implemented new outreach methods in an attempt to continue the upward increase in incoming freshmen, Oba said.
The implementation of instant decision days, days when incoming high school students are assisted with WSU applications and can be instantaneously admitted based on their standing, has served as a massive boost to WSU’s confirmation level of incoming students.
Another method newly implemented was an event called the “Apple-Cup Blitz.”
“In the week running up to our defeat of UW, we hosted more than 80 instant decision days where we were able to admit on-site over 1,500 new applicants,” Berwick said. “It was a way for us to go out into different high schools in our districts, and identify the students who were clearly qualified to come to WSU.”
Brewick said about 82 events were hosted during the week of the Apple-Cup Blitz. The majority of which were instant decision events hosted around Western Washington, and a few in other states.
Around 1,500 students were admitted in a single week during the blitz, which is very promising for enrollment numbers next fall, Oba said.
This fall semester, WSU also saw an increase in first-year students of color and low-income students.
“In both the new transfer and new first-year class, we had more persons of color … both [populations] increased by over 3%,” Oba said. “The other population that increased were low-income students … for transfers, it was a little over 3%. But for first-year students, it was over 7%.”
