Shenandoah University celebrates largest freshman class ever

Approximately 300 Shenandoah University faculty, staff and students joined forces on Tuesday to help first-year students move into their dorms as part of the school’s annual Move-In Day.

Volunteers carried boxes, refrigerators and TVs into dorms to assist new students and their families during their first day on campus.

While it is too early to confirm the number of new students Shenandoah University will enroll this year, it is expected that this will be Shenandoah’s largest incoming freshman class ever with more than 480 students. In 2018, there were 443 first-time, degree-seeking freshman students.

In total, Shenandoah will have around 685 new undergraduates this year, which includes both freshmen and transfer students. Fall enrollment numbers will not be finalized and official until a census is taken, which occurs in early October.

Additional stats

• The top three states where new freshmen come from are Virginia (60%), Maryland (18.5%) and Pennsylvania (6.4%), with 29 states represented overall. This includes students from California (4), North Dakota (1), Texas (1), Kansas (1) and Colorado (1).
• There are three sets of twins in this incoming freshman class.
• 29% of the incoming freshman class identify as a race or ethnicity other than “white”
• 81% of transfer students are from Virginia. Maryland is the next state with the most incoming transfer students, followed by West Virginia. Sixteen states are represented overall in this year’s transfer class, including students from Kansas, Mississippi and Texas.
• 35 percent of the incoming transfer class identify as a race or ethnicity other than “white”

This year, Shenandoah University is housing approximately 1,100 students.

• This is more than 100 percent occupancy.
• This is the third time Shenandoah University has had a bed count of more than 1,000.
• The university has eight residence halls on main campus and one in downtown Winchester.
• Shenandoah is briefly using the La Quinta Inn as temporary housing for students during the 2019-20 school year. Nearly 50 students are being housed there at this time.

During today’s move-in efforts, Shenandoah University offered voter registration to all new students as they arrived on campus. This is the eighth year the university has offered voter registration, which is a student-led effort on Shenandoah’s campus. The Student Government Association is supporting this effort during the 2019-2020 academic year with the help of the Center for Public Service and Scholarship (CPSS).

New students who have not previously registered to vote had the opportunity to register to vote either in their own state or establish their voting in Virginia. Absentee ballot information was also made available.