Western rolls out the purple carpet this weekend for its largest, and among its most diverse, first-year classes in the school’s history.
An incoming class of 5,314 full-time, first-year students arrives on Western’s campus this weekend. The majority of the students call Ontario home, drawing predominately from London and the Greater Toronto Area. However, first-year international student numbers also continue to rise with 554 full-time, first-year international students from 42 countries entering the university, led in numbers by students from China, Saudi Arabia, Korea, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
The entire incoming class is 56 per cent female; its median age is 18.6 years.
Although official numbers are not available until November, the class is also trending toward the highest entering average on record.
Ontario Universities’ Application Centre statistics show that Western’s confirmations from Ontario high school students (across all applicant choices first, second and third) increased by 11.6 per cent over last year. Western’s applications and confirmations from out-of-province and international students also increased significantly this year. Applications have increased by 10.4 per cent and confirmations have increased by 14 per cent, compared to the Ontario-wide increase of 5.3 per cent.
For Western, the increased interest has not been limited to undergraduates.
In its first year, Western’s new graduate application system brought an increase in applications and acceptance rates resulting in an expected total of 2,058 incoming graduate students. Among them are 1,670 masters students and 388 PhD students. Of the 2,058 incoming graduate students, Western welcomes 496 new international students hailing from 58 countries from around the world.