With around 150 students already committed to be a part of the freshman class of 2016, the admissions department is in the home stretch of reaching their goal of 170 students.
Director of Enrollment and Marketing Jesse Roberts stated that the target number of enrolled students for the incoming freshmen class of 2016 is roughly 170. According to Roberts, 150 incoming freshmen students are already enrolled.
“We’re working with a budgeted number of 170 [students]. We’re right around the 150 range now, and that’s only really counting the domestic. That does not include our international population. That’s a range, give or take a couple, because there’s still some fluctuation in those numbers,” Roberts said.
In order to fill the remaining twenty spots to meet the goal, Roberts and the rest of the enrollment and admissions team rely heavily on making the JC experience personal for prospective families through the Patriots Do campaign, which profiles different JC student personalities.
“What we try to do is make the conversation for each family personal. We’ve tried to do… a much better job of telling the JC story through the eyes of the student looking at us. The Patriots Do campaign that went out is different than any other view book in the Archdiocese [of Baltimore] because it’s helping people identify with the school through a student they may identify with,” Roberts said.
Principal Madelyn Ball hopes that the commencement of the STEM program will be a big factor in enticing incoming freshmen.
“I think the programs we offer bring in prospective students. STEM is bringing a lot of kids in,” Ball said.
“It’s one more feather in our cap as a school. Everything is getting better in its own way, and on top of that you have this new program bubbling up that’s going to affect all of those things,” Roberts said.
Compared to last year’s target for the class of 2015, Roberts said, “We’re trending about the same in terms of the total number of kids we have in the pipeline and the kids we’re still working on. Looking at historical trends, we’ll still get some interest. It’s good to know now what we got in the door is within a few percentage points of last year’s total,” he said.
According to Roberts, meeting the targeted goal of enrolled students is crucial to the school community. Components of school life are dependent on the amount of freshmen enrolled on a year-to-year basis.
“[Enrollment] is important for a number of reasons. First and foremost, for planning purposes: to be able to understand how many sections of classes we’re going to need to offer, what that’s going to do to your teacher workload. It’s also important, obviously, from a budgetary standpoint, to understand what tuition is going to come into the school and how that will affect the expenses of the school,” Roberts said.
According to Roberts, if the targeted amount of students is not reached, budget concerns are more prone to occur.
“If you budget for 170 and only 150 students show up, in terms of real budgeting, yes [budget problems occur]. That’s the real difference between programs happening or not happening on campus, just because of the tuition dollars that generates. Enrollment is a really important component of what happens here,” Roberts said.
Even though the class of 2016 hasn’t arrived yet, Roberts already has plans in the works for bringing in students for the class of 2017.
“The Patriots Do campaign is going to expand this year. We have a number of things we’re working on. I’ve got an augmented reality campaign. It’s going to be mind-blowing,” Roberts said.
Maggie Cassidy is the Print Chief for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.