PORTLAND — Administrators at a college in southwest Portland are scrambling to make arrangements for a freshman class so big that they’ve taken to calling it Classzilla.
More students accepted offers to Lewis & Clark college than admissions officers expected, in part because of Portland’s hip reputation, reported The Oregonian.
The college welcomed its largest class ever this year: 656 students, or 60 to 100 freshmen more than normal.
To accommodate the enrollment boom, the school has hired more faculty and staff and crammed three students into dorm rooms intended for two. They’ve also increased Internet capacity and bus and food services on the wooded residential campus.
School officials attribute the increase to more outreach in different racial and socio-economic communities and a new early-decision program that allows students to apply early if they commit to the school when accepted.
Lewis & Clark isn’t the only Portland school attracting huge freshman classes: Reed College and the University of Portland are also welcoming record-breaking numbers of students.
But officials at Lewis & Clark say they don’t plan to expand permanently beyond the school’s average of 2,000 students, and Admissions Dean Lisa Meyer said she’ll have to tweak her process for predicting class sizes.
“Sometimes I wonder how I staked my career on the decision-making ability of 17-year-olds,” said Meyer, who describes forecasting student decisions as both an art and a science.
The school admits about 4,000 applicants each year, and about 14 or 15 percent end up enrolling. Academics call that percentage a yield rate.
This year, Lewis & Clark’s yield rate leapt to 16.4 percent.
“Especially for that small of a school, it’s a big jump,” said Melissa Clinedinst, associate director for research at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “Yield is a tricky thing for colleges, and it’s only gotten trickier.”
Clinedinst said students are applying to more schools than before, causing uncertainty for admissions officials.
“So students have more options, but colleges do as well,” she said.
