The largest freshman class to attend GC enters its dorms and classrooms, students arrive from all over Georgia

The start of the 2012-2013 Georgia College school year marks the entrance of the biggest freshman class in the school’s history. The freshman class consisting of 1,295 students is in contrast to previous freshman classes that have never gone above the cap of 1,200.

The record-breaking class was the result of over 3,880 freshman admission applications that the school received for this year. With this class came an increase in the minority ratio with 189 freshman minority students compared to last year’s 132.

Following in the patterns of past years, a majority of the students come from the northern Atlanta area with the top five contributing cities including Marietta, Roswell, Cumming, Alpharetta and Atlanta.

The freshman class also has 12 students coming from across the globe including countries such as China, Germany, Russia, France, Denmark, Kenya and Sweden.

With so many students interested in attending GC their reasons for wanting to come range across a large spectrum from the appeal of front campus to the option of on-campus apartments at West Campus.

Freshman biology major Emily Ward has many reasons why she chose GC.“I chose it because it was a small school but still big enough to meet a whole bunch of new people. I love everything it has to offer like clubs, sports and sororities. Plus everyone is super nice, so that’s an added bonus.”

While the sports and a variety of student involvement are selling points for some students, others are sold purely on the look of the campus.

“I chose Georgia College because when I stepped on this campus I knew this felt like home, and I wanted a smaller school where I would actually get to know my professors and people on this campus,” said freshman pre-mass communication major Nicole Gilmartin. “I wouldn’t be just another face in the crowd.”

In addition to individual student interests in the school, the recruiting of the Department of Admissions works year round to promote GC and garner interest from future students.

“We start recruiting through word of mouth. Then when students come here on tours, we collect their information to send postcards and emails as application time comes around,” said Suzanne Pittman Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management. “We also work with the SAT and ACT agencies around Georgia and key areas outside the state to buy names of students that appear to be a good fit for Georgia College.”

One of the most common ways admissions recruits future students is just by getting the schools name out into the mainstream and getting people to remember them. One tool the school uses to accomplish this is college fairs and high school visits.

“We participate in the PROBE tour, this is where we have a representative travel all over Georgia attending these college fairs looking for potential students,” Pittman said. “In addition we also make visits to high schools throughout the year and invite high schools to come tour the campus.”