Stevens Tech is attracting quite a few additional applicants

It really should be simple to ignore the Stevens Institute of Technologies. It is a smaller college, with 8,000 students, about fifty percent of them undergraduates. It is in Hoboken, N.J., correct across the river from New York Metropolis, household to several institutions with related strengths, this kind of as Columbia College and Cornell University’s tech campus and quite a few other engineering systems. In New Jersey, Princeton University (with its engineering school) is the greatest-regarded private institution, and the New Jersey Institute of Engineering attracts residents of the point out.

But quietly, about the very last ten years, Stevens has emerged as a player in attracting great students.

Ten years in the past, Stevens adopted a purpose of raising undergraduate enrollment inside of a decade, to 4,000 students—a major maximize while observing academic qualifications go up and growing diversity.

The institute has been successful—applications have enhanced from 4,087 a 10 years back to 12,500 this year.

Stevens grew from 2,427 undergraduates in 2011 to 4,064 last slide, a 67 percent improve. The enrollment of female undergraduates went up by 98 percent (despite the fact that the percentage of female undergraduates is just 30 percent). There has been a 149 percent rise in underrepresented minority learners because 2011 (to 18 percent of the scholar body).

Notably, the high quality of candidates is also way up. The common SAT rating (mixed) in 2021 was 1432, an boost of 145 details considering the fact that 2011. Even with the issues made by COVID-19, 97 percent of graduates both had positions or ended up in graduate school six months soon after graduation in 2021.

The photograph is also encouraging for graduate admissions.

In 2021, the college acquired 11,959 apps (and is expected to major 15,000 this calendar year, with rolling conclusions closing in August). Which is up from 3,268 in 2011.

In which Do the Candidates Appear From?

Stevens has utilized its locale around, but not in, New York City to solidify applicant interest, according to President Nariman Farvardin, who arrived in 2011. Indeed, if you search all around the Stevens website, you will obtain several images showing New York Town, which is a short teach trip absent and is noticeable from the campus.

Of course, Stevens’ academic strengths—in know-how and business—also resonate with many learners, as does the placement price for Stevens graduates.

Stevens has applied precollege programs—free for underrepresented minority students—to create up its range of minority applicants. Farvardin is recognized as a sturdy booster of the applications.

“We deliver on return on investment” is the reason cited by Susan Gross, assistant vice president for fiscal help and undergraduate admissions, for the gains. She mentioned that Stevens takes terrific pleasure in the encounter of learners, and that in the end term of mouth spreads.

She also mentioned Stevens went exam optional all through the pandemic and has not nonetheless announced regardless of whether the exam need will appear again. She reported that is common with candidates and that the college will study its impression on the most modern course admitted. With each software acquiring various reads, she claimed she was assured that the college admitted a terrific course.

Constantin Chassapis, senior vice provost for graduate education, claimed a key part of Stevens’ achievement in graduate admissions is its belief in not relying on just one state outside the U.S. to generate all the students. Farvardin was a foreign scholar at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from Iran when the shah fell. He reported the working experience taught him that a place can go from sending numerous learners to the United States (as Iran when did) to rather couple.

In the tumble of 2011, Stevens experienced 203 new graduate pupils from China, 48 new pupils from India and 79 from other nations. Past fall, Stevens experienced 311 pupils from China, 821 from India and 111 from other nations around the world. Chassapis mentioned the raises mirrored tough perform by Stevens and also discrepancies (commonly) amongst the countries—he explained Chinese learners are open to on the web education and learning (a worry of numerous was that COVID-19 in the U.S. or their property place would drive them on-line), but Indian learners highly benefit the in-person instruction they get in the United States.

Stevens has arrangements with agents around the planet, in the perception that “boots on the ground” is the only way to recruit students, Chassapis explained.

And as to the policy of not overrelying on a solitary country, he reported, “We never want there to be a single place of failure.”

Stephen R. Reynolds, president of the Unbiased Colleges and Universities of New Jersey, mentioned, “The rising enrollment numbers at Stevens have truly been very outstanding.”

Reynold attributed the figures to Stevens’ “success in offering an instructional experience that is created on just one of its main and very well-recognized strengths—technology—and its means to supply true benefit for its college students and graduates.”