RECRUITMENT

One of our most helpful barometers for the health of the fall 2023 incoming class is the “count of admits” on Dec. 1, 2022.

This date marks the application deadline to be considered for our guaranteed freshman academic scholarships. Overall, applications for both transfer students and first-time freshmen were up 17.5%.

Admitted student numbers were up 6.2% for new freshmen and up 30.4% for transfer students. This is an outstanding data point in light of the significant losses our Tennessee community colleges have suffered in the past several years.

The challenge becomes converting those applicants and admits to enrolled students. Universities all over the country are experiencing this challenge as students both apply to more institutions and have the additional options of entering a booming workforce or taking a gap year to work, travel, or learn on their own. This means we must continue to recruit the students we’ve admitted through orientation and even up to the day classes start.

Our annual True Blue Tour began in August with the Rutherford County event on our own campus, the first of 14 stops across Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and Georgia.

In the fall, we hosted two extended tour opportunities—our True Blue Preview events—where we invited students and their families to take a closer look at campus and meet some of our faculty and college advising staff. Through these events and hundreds of school visits, college fairs, and our campus tour program, we are doing everything in our power to attract the best and brightest students to become part of the True Blue family.

In an effort to stay competitive with other Tennessee institutions as we work to attract the highest-achieving new students, MTSU made substantial changes to our guaranteed freshman scholarships. I announced a new, top-tier scholarship: the designation of Centennial Scholar, which provides $32,000 over four years ($8,000 per year) to students scoring 34–36 on the ACT and a 3.5 high school GPA.

A review of declining national and statewide average ACT scores, coupled with conversations with our partner guidance counselors in high schools statewide, also suggested that it was time to increase and expand our guaranteed scholarship at the beginning end of the array. To that end, we expanded the True Blue Scholarship to include applicants with ACT scores of 22–24 and increased the value of the award to $3,500 per year.

As a result of these changes—and the considerable effort of our undergraduate recruitment team—scholarship offers to eligible students are up more than 23% over the same period last year.

We are doing everything in our power to attract the best and brightest students to become part of the True Blue family.