Celebrating our new Temple students

To the Temple community,

It is always exciting to welcome new students to Temple, and that was especially true this year. Last month, Temple University welcomed more than 4,900 new first-year students, nearly 1,300 transfer students, and almost 2,200 new graduate and professional students to its domestic campuses.

I am pleased to share that incoming enrollment is up from last year, 30% for first-year students, 29% for transfer students and 11% for graduate students. As you know, the new student population is only one portion of our overall enrollment. While we initially anticipated a decrease in enrollment because the graduating Class of 2024 was one of the largest classes in Temple's history, I am happy to share that our overall enrollment is down just slightly from one year ago. If we can maintain this incoming student success, then in coming years, we will have total enrollment growth as future graduating classes are smaller.

From the start of this enrollment cycle, faculty and staff across the university's 17 schools and colleges and its many departments have worked tirelessly to recruit and welcome all our new students. Whether it was through visiting with a prospective student or hosting a student here on campus, they shared a distinctive and powerful story: Temple is known for excellence and outcomes, and our students go on to change the world.

That message resonated because it is true. Our students receive world-class instruction, learning experiences and support from talented faculty and staff members like all of you. I want to say thank you. The results of this enrollment cycle directly reflect all your efforts.

As I mentioned, we have much to celebrate regarding our new students, and I would like to point out a few distinctions.

• The Class of 2028 is once again richly diverse, with record percentages of students of color, Pell grant recipients and first-generation students. In total, 62.3% of the class identifies as a student of color, and we have seen significant increases among our first-year Black, Hispanic/Latinx/Latine and Asian/Pacific Islander student populations.
• In addition to the historic number of applications received this year, we are pleased that the university had a higher yield rate this year, which once again shows that students and families see Temple as a desirable destination.
• We continue to uphold high academic standards, with our acceptance rate decreasing by 2 percentage points.
• This year's new class of students are high performers in the classroom. They have an average GPA of 3.42, up from 3.38 last year, and nearly 530 students committed to joining the Temple Honors program, the highest number in several years. These Honors students boast a mean high school GPA of 3.98, and 50% of the new Honors students are students of color.
• Our innovative Temple Promise financial aid program was highly successful, creating a pathway for nearly 500 students from Philadelphia. These students are part of the over 1,100 new students from Philadelphia, a dramatic increase over last year.
• More and more students from out of state are also now calling Temple home. Out-of-state students make up 43.5% of the incoming class, which is a record percentage.
• Incoming international students are up more than 60% over the last two years, representing 4.3% of the class. These students hail from 124 countries and territories.

Learn more about the Class of 2028 in this Temple Now piece.

Once again, I want to thank you all for your work over the last year. I look forward to working alongside you to continue to support both our new and returning students this academic year.

Sincerely,

Gregory N. Mandel
Senior Vice President and Provost
Laura H. Carnell Professor of Law

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