Top 10 Stories of 2023 – From now until Dec. 31, Grove City College is counting down our top news stories of the year. This story was published August 11.
Grove City College will welcome more than 600 new students to campus this month as the 2023-24 academic year begins.
They are drawn to the College by its excellent academics, its Christian mission, career outcomes, conservative values, and strong community, according to survey of the incoming freshmen class.
Asked by the College’s Admissions Office to identify the attributes that were “important” or “very important” in their decision to attend, members of the class of 2027 identified five key distinctives that influenced their choice to attend Grove City College:
- 96% said it was the nationally ranked academic programs in the liberal arts, STEM, business, and nursing.
- 89% cited the College’s commitment to its historical Christian mission, demonstrated by the integration of faith and learning across disciplines.
- 85% were swayed by an excellent record of career outcomes for alumni, who see above average salaries throughout their working lives.
- 84% signed up because of the College’s longstanding reputation for upholding and advancing conservative values.
- 83% focused on the campus community, which provides a welcoming, supportive, and vibrant living and learning experience.
Incoming freshman Priscilla Noll, a nursing major from Pittsburgh, said she is looking forward to experiencing everything the College has to offer. “I chose Grove City because I wanted a strong Christian college, that had good values, quality education, and a nice campus life.”
“When I first started my college search, my siblings and friends that had already gone to college told me about the ‘click’ you’re supposed to feel with the campus,” Grace Serritella, an incoming English major from Warwick, N.Y. “I had visited multiple campuses before Grove City’s and was starting to doubt that I’d ever feel that connection to any school. However, when I stepped foot on GCC’s campus for the first time, instantly it felt like home, as clichéd as that may sound! God was definitely calling me to this school, and there was no way I’d ignore that!”
A few weeks before the start of classes on Aug. 28, a picture of the College’s Class of 2027 is coming into focus. The more than 570 incoming freshmen are academically and geographically diverse. Nearly half of them – 47% – come from private, classical, parochial and homeschool backgrounds. The class comes from 35 states, with 46% coming from out of state. Standardized test scores reported by the incoming students indicate more than 70% were in the top 90% nationally, with nearly half scoring in the top 10 percent.
Nearly half of the freshmen will be studying STEM disciplines, including engineering, exercise science, and computer science; 17% are in the School of Business; and 35% are pursuing degrees in the liberal arts, education, music, and other majors.
The College expects more than 40 transfer students to join the campus community this fall.