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TCU 360

TCU 360

All TCU. All the time.

TCU 360

Students discuss religious topics in a small group. (Photo courtesy of tcuwesley.org)
Wednesday nights at TCU’s Methodist campus ministry provide religious exploration and fellowship
By Boots Giblin, Staff Writer
Published Mar 27, 2024
Students at the Wesley said they found community on Wednesday nights.

    Texans to make up less than 50 percent of freshman class

    Texans+to+make+up+less+than+50+percent+of+freshman+class

    School’s out, orientation is underway and the Class of 2016 is shaping up.

    Of the 19,306 applications received,  approximately 7,900 people who received letters of acceptance and 1,891 have put down their deposits along with the future for TCU Admissions, according to Dean of Admission Ray Brown. 

    Geographical Demographics

    For the first time since 1979, TCU’s freshman class Texan population is projected to be less than 50 percent. This will bring the total TCU Texas population to around 61 percent Brown said.

    “It was not a goal to get to where we are with fewer than 50 percent Texans,” Brown said.

    The largest population from out of state arrives from California for the freshman class with 245 deposits so far, according to data from TCU Admissions. Brown attributed the large number of Californians to the 2011 Rose Bowl win, the difference between the California and Texas education system and the full-time TCU admissions person in California six years ago.

    Illinois takes the second largest out-of-state population with 86 deposits. TCU also put a full-time admissions counselor in Illinois, as well as California, Brown said. At the time though, the Illinois admissions person had a small base of only 15 freshmen TCU students and since has helped that number grow. 

    The largest number of deposits from Texas come from the Fort Worth area with 271 deposits, followed by Dallas with 230 and Houston with 110. Houston also has a full time admissions person stationed in their area but it’s less to attract potential students and more to deal with the overflow, Brown said.

    Number of Deposits

    The class of 2016 currently has deposits from 1,891 potential students of the about 7,900 people who were offered admission, Brown said. The ideal freshman class size is about 1,820 students and the freshman class needs to lose about 70 people in order to make that number by the fall.

    “We expect that we will lose 30 to 40 [people] but we really need to lose more than that through the summer because there really is a bunch of students who will submit deposits and then change their minds later,” Brown said.

    It is expected that the freshman class will lose anywhere from 125 to 175 deposits over the summer because of previous years, Brown said. In order to lessen the number of dropped deposits the housing deposit increased to $400 from $200 and the tuition deposit increased to $500 from $400.

    Also, the earlier someone puts down their  housing deposit no longer means they will get their housing assignment earlier.

    “We had hundreds and hundreds of students submitting housing deposits and later wanting them back because they decided to go elsewhere and it was almost a full-time job having to refund these deposits,” Brown said. “I think this had made a very positive impact on the numbers that we have right now being real.”

    Future

    TCU now has an admissions counselor in New England in order to start recruiting more from that area.The national attention TCU has received has started to generate interest, Brown said.

    “There’s an old joke with New Englanders and New Yorkers that nothing’s worth looking at west of the Hudson River,” Brown said.

    There are other areas that TCU will be working on as well.

    “We’d like to see more students of color and more men,” Brown said. “We’d like to see [the male population] get to be more around 50 percent.”

    As for standardized testing, the average SAT is projected to be 1800 for the Class of 2017 and 27 for the ACT with the average class rank increasing to the upper 17th percentile, Brown said.

    Waitlist

    There were approximately 15-20 valedictorians on the TCU waitlist this year.

    Those who were put on the waitlist for the class of 2016 were notified back in May. Of the 150 students on the waitlist who were offered admission, 100 have put down deposits, Brown said.

    Those that are admitted are determined by which college they will be enrolling in, Brown said. This means that if a particular college is over-enrolled, a student would be less likely to be accepted than someone wanting to enroll in a less crowded college.

    This map depicts the current deposits for the class of 2016. Texas has been left out to show a larger difference between the states and currently has 919 deposits. Data comes from TCU Admissions.

    This bar graph depicts the Texas Cities where the class of 2016 deposits are from. Data is from TCU Admissions.