While college enrollment is on the decline nationwide, Winthrop University has just broken its record for the number of freshman applicants.
A recent press release from Winthrop said that “[f]or the second consecutive year, a record number of prospective students have applied for admission to the incoming Winthrop University Class of 2024.”
According to the release, the university had received 6,125 applications as of Feb. 5. This exceeds the “previous mark of 6,101 from fall 2019.”
In the press release, Winthrop President Dan Mahony said that this increased interest from prospective first-year students “demonstrates that this strong student-centered focus at the university is working.”
In an interview with The Johnsonian, Vice President for Access and Enrollment Management Eduardo Prieto said that while the high numbers of applicants do not guarantee enrollment, it provides the opportunity to get new students on campus.
“In the golf vernacular, getting applications is [like] hitting on the green,” Prieto said. “You’ve got a chance now to make your putt.”
Prieto said that the university has been “fortunate” and that this record number of applications “speaks volumes about the momentum” that “Winthrop has right now.”
Since the release of the news about the record number of applications, the number has gone up even higher. As of last Monday, the number is over 6,200, according to Prieto.
In a Dec. 2019 article for “Forbes,” former Missouri State University President Michael T. Nietzel reported that “[f]or the first time this decade, the nation’s fall semester’s unduplicated enrollments dipped below 18 million, a decline of more than 2 million students since its peak in 2011.”
In regards to Winthrop receiving record numbers of applications during this downward trend of college enrollment, Prieto said that he believes it is “a combination of things.”
“I think for us … part of the reason there’s been a lot more interest in Winthrop is that the institution, the community, we’ve done a much better job the last several years of telling our story,” Prieto said.
He went on to accolade the university for its culture of student engagement with what happens on campus and the relationships between faculty/staff and students.
“I think that the engagement part, if you look at all the national surveys, we rank extremely high on the level of student engagement and I think that’s part of the fabric of who we are,” Prieto said. “I think the majority of our students enjoy coming to a community where … a lot of people are going to know who they are — if they want to be known — [and] be on a first-name basis with not only a lot of peers but know their professors well, compared to some larger schools, especially.”
Prieto elaborated on the roles of the faculty and staff at Winthrop, telling The Johnsonian that he thinks they do a “tremendous job” telling the “Winthrop story” in their “individual networks and communities.” He also cited their role in not only attracting new students to the university but also helping to retain students as well.
“[The faculty] obviously do a wonderful job in that,” Prieto said. “There’s a lot of good work going on across campus.” He continued, saying that Winthrop’s staff is very “eager and passionate about the university and I think that goes a long way as well … when it comes to new student recruitment, they’re often the first people that our students and families meet and so that’s where they form one of the first impressions of Winthrop and they really do a wonderful job at that.”
Photo: Matt Thrift/ The Johnsonian
