Sallyportal: Madly Blogging Reed

Class of '16 By The Numbers

By Miles Bryan '13 on September 14, 2012 03:55 PM
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Photo by Leah Nash

Though the summer sun is still shining in Portland, fall semester is fully underway. The last few weeks have seen freshlings transformed from awe-struck new arrivals to awe-struck new arrivals who are behind on their Hum 110 reading.

One of the most remarkable things about the Class of '16 is that there are fewer of them: 320 this year, as compared to an average of 370 over the past three years.

Reed received 3,131 applications to join the freshman class, of which 1125 were accepted, for an acceptance rate of 36%, down from 40% last year.

As usual, these Reedies did well in high school: 17% were in the Top 5% of their class, and 30% were in the top fifth; 11 were high school valedictorians. Their average GPA was 3.9, the same as the last two years.

The mean SAT score for reading was 714; for math was 670; and for writing was 692.

More than one in four freshlings hail from California (27%); others come from the Northeast (23%), the Mountain/Southwest (14%), Oregon (9%) and International (9%). The class includes more women (55%) than men (45%).

Of the 302 non-international freshlings, 27% reported an ethnic minority background, including Hispanic (13%), African American (3%), Native American (3%), and Asian or Pacific Islander (9%).

Some 10% of freshlings will be the first in their family to get a four-year college degree.

But Reedies have never been just statistics--the best way to know the Class of '16 is to know their stories. One has acted in movies with Jessica Lange, John Malkovitch, and Chloe Sevigny. One was the only woman on an otherwise all-male basketball team. Two are black belt holders. One is a triathlete.

No matter where they are from or what they have done, we welcome them to Reed.

Tags: admissions, statistics, students