By Caleb Dorfman
Transcript Correspondent
By May 1, 2,800 high school seniors will decide whether they want to become a part of the class of 2017 at Ohio Wesleyan.
According to Rebecca Eckstein, vice-president for enrollment, the school receives a little over 4,000 applications each year and accepts 2,800.
For the current freshman class, 55 percent are female and 45 percent are male, according to the OWU website.
Of new applicants accepted so far, Eckstein 54 percent are female and 46 percent are male.
According to the OWU website, 47 percent of the student body is from Ohio, and 22 percent of the student body are from outside the country.
Currently, there are students from 45 countries at OWU. According to Eckstein, that number has increased to 47 countries being represented on campus.
“All of this changes daily until May 1st, the deadline for accepting our offer of admission,” she said.
The OWU website said students from 41 different states make up the student body, as of August 2012.
Eckstein said the majority of students, from the incoming freshman class as well as the current student body, come from Ohio.
However, “…a large percentage also come from California, New England, Michigan and Maryland,” Eckstein said.
For the both the current freshman class, as well as the incoming freshman class, the average GPA has remained 3.5, Eckstein said.
According to the OWU website, the current freshman class’ SAT scores ranged from 1050 to 1240.
The average so far for the incoming class, said Eckstein, is 1175.
“Many of the accepted students’ intended majors are science related majors,” said Eckstein, “Although many students change their majors after coming to college.”
Other intended majors included English and Economics-related majors according to Eckstein.
“However, many students don’t have a clue what they want to major in before coming to college,” she said.
Freshman Vinay Pinjani, an international student from Karachi, Pakistan, said when he came to college, he thought he was going to only major in Economics.
“But after I took a psychology class, I decided I wanted to double-major in Economics and Psychology,” said Pinjani.
“I never thought I’d even be interested in psychology, but now I want to double major in it.”
According to sophomore Charles Irwin, another reason that students come to OWU is for sports.
“I chose (OWU) mainly because I wanted to be on the swim team,” Irwin said.