In the past five years, the number of applicants has increased by about 25 percent, and more are from outside New England. This year the admission office received applications from 33 states and 19 foreign countries. Students of color make up 5 percent of the freshman class, compared with 3 percent five years ago.

"In the fall of 2000, we admitted 1,904 students out of an applicant pool of 2,623, and we had no waiting list. This year, we admitted 2,366 out of an applicant pool of 3,258 and we maintained a sizable wait list," Griffin says.

She hastens to add that the admission office isn’t becoming more selective because of a desire to exclude students, but because it wants to seek out those who will be best served by the college. "Our job is to admit students who are going to flourish at Saint Anselm," she says. "It’s about finding the students who will contribute the most and benefit the most in terms of developing as a student and a person."

Perhaps Some Tea with that Application
Selecting the students who are the best match for Saint Anselm is quite a process and includes up to four readers for every application. The college considers many factors: high school transcript, class rank, course difficulty, standardized test scores, activities outside of the classroom, essays, and letters of recommendation.

The first reader makes a judgment about whether the applicant is admissible and, if so, where he or she falls in the applicant pool. Then the application goes to Griffin, who has read every application since she became director in 2001. "I started doing that because I wanted to become familiar with our applicant pool. I kept doing it because I need to make sure that we are consistent and there is integrity in the process," she says.

If an application’s first reader and Griffin agree that the student should be admitted, he or she is in. If they don’t agree or they both feel admission should be denied, the application goes to a third reader and sometimes even a fourth.

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