Local colleges, universities seeing positive changes in enrollment and admissions numbers

MARYLAND- Last year due to the pandemic, college enrollment saw a dip.

“We received over 8,600 applications last year, however as the pandemic continued when we came up to fall we did experience a decline because of the medical and financial uncertainty,” Latoya Jenkins, Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Experience, said.

But since last year, we’re told things are looking up.

Salisbury University said they are seeing a slight shift in enrollment numbers.

“We are actually up in enrollment students at the moment, date to date, so we are still very much in the process of getting our class,” Beth Skoglund, Salisbury University Director of Admissions, said.

SU added being able to have campus tours has been a huge help.

“Right now, we are allowing 30 people to come visit us at one time and breaking that down into two tour groups probably, so still not as big as we normally would do during the summer, but definitely bigger than last year,” Skoglund said.

Meanwhile, University of Maryland Eastern Shore said they are up 22 percent in terms of admitted students.

“So ,last year we has 5,288 admitted students as of today this year we have 6,444,” Jenkins said.

“One of the biggest strategies that we used at UMES is making sure that we got out our admitted student letters faster,” Jenkins said.

While schools are starting to see some normalcy again, uncertainty still lies ahead.

But schools said they will remain optimistic about admission numbers and continue educating families on their efforts.

“We are really hopeful about the future,” Skoglund said.

“To try to get the information out about the resources that we have on campus, about how we support students via testing and the mitigation of the virus,” Jenkins.