Illustration by Marcia Staimer
George Mason University welcomed its largest incoming class in its 50-year history this semester. A final tally shows some 6,359 new students, including freshmen and transfers, were new to Mason campuses.
It is the fourth year in a row that Mason has surpassed the previous year’s benchmark for new students. Mason now has 36,000 students on four campuses, with 6,243 living in residence halls on the Fairfax Campus, also a new record.
“Mason is becoming better known, both nationally and internationally, as a destination for students who want a world-class education with strong connections to the Northern Virginia-Washington, D.C., area,” said David A. Burge, vice president for enrollment management.
“Our graduates are well-established in high profile positions and at top graduate schools, building a better life with the tools they develop as students here,” he added. “Each year, more and more people are taking notice of the great work being done at Mason.”
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New students coming to Mason, which boasts a “majority minority” population, hail from 83 countries and 45 U.S. states.
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37 percent of incoming freshmen are first-generation college students, according to Mason admissions data.
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The average 2017 freshman SAT score is 1197 (combining critical reading scores with mathematics scores). The 75th percentile score is 1280; the 25th percentile score is 1110. Those scores are up by 40 points over 2016, the first year colleges were required to report SAT scores.
- Freshmen accounted for 3,497 new students, some 200 more than last year. Transfers from other schools totaled about 2,862—up from 2,643 last year.
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About 75 percent of the transferred students transferred from Northern Virginia Community College.