On Tuesday, September 6, Carleton College welcomed the Class of 2015 to campus. There are 524 students in the class, selected from a pool of 4,988 applicants. The students represent 41 states and 22 countries, with 99 students coming from Minnesota, followed by Illinois (52), California (48), Washington (30), New York and Wisconsin (27 each), Massachusetts and Maryland (17 each), Oregon (14), New Jersey (13), and Texas (10).
Twenty-three percent of the class are students of color, 11 percent are in the first generation in their families to attend college, and 78 percent graduated in the top 10 percent of their class. Ten percent of the students come from countries outside of the United States.
Seventy-nine members of the class are National Merit Scholars, five are National Achievement Scholars, and four are National Hispanic Recognition Scholars. Members of this year’s entering class have participated in a wide variety of extracurricular activities: 73 percent have participated in community service activities, 59 percent have played a varsity sport, 52 percent play a musical instrument, 52 percent participated in one or more academic clubs, and 45 percent were active in arts and drama activities.