Record Number of Freshmen Arrive at ESF

College welcomes 327 freshmen, 224 transfer students
8/22/2012

• Orientation at ESF

The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) expects to enroll a record number of 327 entering freshmen this week, along with 224 entering transfer students. The combined total of 551 new undergraduates for this fall is expected to match the record number enrolled at ESF last fall.

This class will also be among the highest quality and most diverse freshman classes to ever enroll at ESF. The "typical" entering freshman at ESF will have earned a high school average of 92 percent, a class rank in the top 20 percent of their graduating class and SAT college entrance examination scores in the top 20 percent of all students tested nationally.

Twenty-one percent of the entering freshmen come from outside New York state, maintaining ESF's position as one of the most geographically diverse campuses in the SUNY system.

Students from underrepresented racial and ethnic populations will make up 14 percent of this year's class, a substantially higher percentage than the college has enrolled in recent years.

The entering first-year class is also well balanced in terms of gender, with 51 percent male students and 49 percent female students. Academic programs in conservation biology, environmental studies, bioprocess engineering and natural resources management showed strong gains in enrollment this fall.

ESF offered a new Early Decision application plan for this fall aimed at high school applicants who identified ESF as their first choice institution by December of their senior year. More than one quarter of the entering first-year students were offered admission through this new plan.