The Elizabethtown College admissions team is quietly celebrating yet another astonishing recruiting year after welcoming its largest incoming class in seven years with 525 students. It’s not just the number of students that’s worth celebrating—it’s who’s in the class.
There are 14 states, six countries and 80 underrepresented students joining the Etown community, a 15% increase in representation from the previous class. The first-years also have an average GPA of 3.74, demonstrating how selective the admission process was.
The sharp increase in diversity was a welcome change for the admissions team, who applied different tactics this year to spread their recruitment net across both the country and the world.
“The team has really embraced the ‘no stone left unturned’ model from a recruitment standpoint,” Assistant Vice President of Admissions Adam Smith said. “We’ve gone further into tertiary markets where we hadn’t been previously recruiting, and that helped us quite a bit.”
Tertiary markets are usually smaller than primary or secondary focuses, and sometimes can return little reward. The admissions team decided to take the chance and dive deeper into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia. Aside from the deeper exploration of surrounding states, the team also started working in Ohio and northern New England states.
It’s risky to explore these markets—many students don’t want to be far from home, or they choose larger state schools if they decide to make a journey. Some college admissions teams choose to focus their efforts closer to home, but this year, Etown took a risk—and it paid off.
“We’ve been able to cast a wide net and get the word out about Etown,” Smith said. “Once on campus, they see what we’re all about. We are a sales team, but we really have a great product to sell.”
Another way that the team has increased enrollment was building better relationships with high school counselors and parents, who become advocates for the schools. Smith said a major factor in the team’s success is in its name—it truly is a team that includes members of different backgrounds and students themselves.
“Everyone has their area of specialty, but we work well together,” Smith said. “I got here three years ago and realized how great the team is and how they work towards a common goal—students.”
Now that the class of 2026 is on campus, the admissions team has already started their efforts for the class of 2027, but that doesn’t mean the first-years are forgotten about. “There’s a handoff where admissions gives the students over to the provost and faculty at Etown, but we always keep up with the incoming class and send notes asking how they are doing,” Smith said. “We love when students come back and fill us in on what they’re doing or talk about the summer.”
For admissions, the summer was another big win.
“We had a summer open house in July, and it was one of the largest summer open houses we’ve hosted, even pre-COVID,” Smith said. “There are so many offices that help us out, like dining, safety and security and housing that don’t often get credit but play a huge part in our events.”
Etown prides itself on its close-knit community, which the team always keeps in mind.
“I think we are competitive and want to outdo ourselves, but at the same time keeping in mind that community feeling,” Smith said. “We get tremendous support from President [Betty] Rider, the senior leadership team and we just have the resources needed to win every year.”
The new students and their diverse backgrounds will contribute to the Etown community while the admissions team gears up for recruiting the class of 2027.
