Accepted Students Days Held In-Person as Class of 2026 Takes Shape
A prospective student poses with his parents and Frankie the Fox on one of the accepted student days. Source: Instagram: @marist
Over four accepted student days, the Marist College campus saw prospective students of all different backgrounds come together in person for the first time since the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is really nice seeing the campus so much more lively, and I think it’s more engaging and fun for the people working the admitted student days,” said Gio Sabatino ’22, president of the Student Admissions Leadership Board. “Also, for the families, they get to see what a normal campus is like. They see people walking around and on the green.”
Holding multiple accepted student days was a plan that Marist had in place for months, with the initial decision being made amid uncertainty over the Omicron Variant.
“We had to make that decision in January,” said Sean Kaylor, Vice President of Enrollment, Marketing and Communication. “We had to establish those dates early, and Covid was still running rampant. So we weren’t sure what to expect, and we were just happy to be doing something on ground and in person for the first time in two years. We ran a few ideas and said the safest bet is to spread it out over two weekends instead of just one.”
The two weekends amounted to four separate accepted student days. Each day was carried out successfully, and the Admissions Department was able to take away many positives from the new format.
“The pros were that it was a more manageable group each day,” said Kaylor. “Everyone could socially distance to whatever degree they felt comfortable, and we were able to accommodate more students and families. It worked because we were engaging in more meaningful and long conversations with people.”
With the pros of the new format also came the cons. The primary downfall of the multiple accepted student days was that staffing became an issue.
“The negatives are just pure exhaustion. Asking faculty, staff, students and alumni to come help out two weekends in a row and not have a break is a lot,” said Kaylor. “It’s too early to say what we will do [next year], but we learned a lot from this experience. I imagine we probably won’t completely go back to one weekend, but I don’t know that we would mirror this either, so it’ll probably be somewhere in the middle.”
During accepted students days, future Red Foxes get their first are brought together on campus for the first time. According to Kaylor, Marist has aimed for about 1,250-1,275 students in each freshman class for the last five years, with the class of 2026 on a similar trend.
“We are just shy of 700 deposits so far, so we’re about halfway there,” said Kaylor. “Typically, we get half of our deposits in the last two weeks of April, so we are in a pretty busy time of the year for admissions and enrollment.”
In recent years, Marist has been focused on increasing diversity on campus and within the student body. Ensuring diversity in the class of 2026 has been a goal for the admissions department.
“I’m really looking at three things [regarding diversity]; one is, of course, geographic diversity, another is race and ethnic diversity and the third would be socioeconomic diversity,” said Kaylor. “We are seeing a slight uptick in all of those three categories of diversity so far.”
The Marist student body has continued to grow more diverse from decade to decade. According to statistics provided by Kaylor, In 1980, 3% of the student body was people of color, in 1990; 8%, in 2000, 10%, and in 2010, 14%. The most recent data from the Marist Factbook shows that in 2019, 28% of that freshman class was a race other than white.
“Naturally, in my position, I’ve interacted with many different people, and there are definitely people from all over geographically and from all different backgrounds,” said Sabatino when asked if he noticed more diversity among the accepted students. “It’s a really diverse group of people coming in from what I’ve seen and who I’ve gotten to talk to.”
Marist seems on track to continue their recent diversity trends as they are ahead of pace compared to normal years, with only half of the class of 2026 being solidified.
“We are running ahead of where we were in terms of racial and ethnic diversity; our goal was that about 25% of the incoming freshmen would be students of color. We are always hoping for more, but we thought, given everything that we’ve seen, that’s a realistic goal for Marist,” said Kaylor.