On Saturday, April 8 during Spring Weekend, the admissions office hosted Accepted Students Day with record attendance, according to Melissa Shepherd, director of financial aid and managing director of admissions at Longwood University.
“We had around 450 students, and a little over 1,100 people, which is pretty big for an accepted students open house,” Sheppard said. “The biggest one we had prior to this was around 310 students.”
According to Shepherd, the admissions office does not know what the final enrollment for 2017-18 will be, but the number is on track to exceed last year’s. She also said that the number of deposits varies day to day, so exact estimates aren’t predictable yet.
“The admissions process is pretty fluid, some days you might get 50 deposits in, some days you might get five,” Sheppard explained.
According to Shepherd, the admissions office knows this because they have more deposits than they did this time last year.
The event welcomed both committed students and undecided students, with additional students committing during the event.
“We had about 50 people commit to Longwood on that day. And of course we’ve had more since then. A good amount of people who come to those have already paid their deposit, they’re just excited about Longwood and want a reason to come.” Shepherd explained. “Of course there are the ones who are trying to decide.”
According to Shepherd, the acceptance rate is stable, but the number of applicants and acceptances increased this year.
There were four phases to the open house: the academic bullpen, the general session, the parents and students sessions, and an optional tailgate, according to Shepherd.
“We try and make the day as exciting as possible and make them feel welcome here,” Shepherd noted. “Typically an open house has an academic bullpen, is what we call it. Representatives from different majors come and we have them in Blackwell (Hall) and they have literature about their programs. Students can walk around the room, meet the faculty and talk to them.”
According to Shepherd, students at the event could also interact with support staff, such as the financial aid office and the registration office.
“We also have some support staff that come,” She noted. “We have financial aid there, Residential and Commuter Life is there, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority life and other support staff. Someone from the registration office comes.”
After that, students and parents attended a general session. The location is usually Jarman Auditorium, but it was moved to Willet due to the volume of students, according to Shepherd.
Jordan Berkompas, a freshman math major and Ambassador, was among those giving tours.
“I think it went pretty good.” Berkompas said. “We had a lot of people there, lot of fun. The students were very engaged.”
According to Berkompas, the event ran smoothly despite the large volume of visitors.
“There were probably 30 to 40 tours total, but it all went well,” said Berkompas. “The new students were really excited, and asked a lot of questions. They’re interested in more than just the basic stuff, that was exciting.”
Judy May, a sophomore chemistry major and ambassador said, “Accepted students are even more fun because it's the day they're either making their final decision or they know they want to go to Longwood ... Being able to share my love of Longwood with prospective students is one of my very favorite things.”
Shepherd said admissions is optimistic about the incoming class.
“We’re really excited about this class. We seem to have a lot of energetic folks that are really interested and excited in being Lancers,” She said. “Hopefully, this makes the students that are here feel like you’re going to have some classmates who are going to love Longwood just as much as you do.”
10:34 a.m., April 19 - The article title has been changed to correctly name April 8, "Accepted Students Day." Previously, it said "Acceptance Student Day."
