Sara Detrik said she has officially sent in her deposit to become a member of the class of 2015 after attending Picture Yourself at Emerson, the open-house event for prospective students, on April 15.

Detrik joins the thousands of high school seniors across the country making their final decisions of where to spend their next four years. For Detrik, coming to Picture Yourself at Emerson helped seal the deal.

“I really did want to go to Emerson, but I wasn’t completely sold yet,” the Fairfield, Conn. native said in a phone interview with the Beacon. “It was fun, I met a lot of new people, and it was just really welcoming.”

According to MJ Knoll-Finn, vice president for enrollment,  there was about an eight percent increase in applications received this year. The Emerson website states that nearly 6,500 applications are received each year for an incoming class of 790 students.

Knoll-Finn said that because the administration wanted to build a slightly larger class, the acceptance rate also increased, with about 350  more perspective freshman getting the big envelope than in previous years, making the admit rate 48 percent, in comparison to last year’s 47 percent.

“Given the small percentage rate difference, I don’t believe this has hurt the competitiveness of the college,” Knoll-Finn said in an email to the Beacon. “It’s actually a testament to the increased interest in Emerson by talented students that we are able to increase the size of the freshman class without any major shifts in quality or diversity.”

This could also be one of the most racially diverse classes yet. Knoll-Finn  said there was a 20 percent increase in applications from minority students, a 42 percent  increase in international applicants, and trends of students interested in Emerson coming from the west, the south, and the southwest of the U.S.

“They are excited, lively, interesting, and really excited about Emerson,” Knoll-Finn said about the accepted students. “The feeling is we are a hot school right now, and students are really excited about us.”

“I would say we have a good national reach,” she said.

Prospective students were able to attend Picture Yourself at Emerson on April 1, 8, and 15 and participated in activities like listening to panel discussions, sitting in on a mock class, and touring the residence halls. Cara Rotschafer was a tour guide during the event, and said the class of 2015 is an excited bunch.

“Since they were accepted, a lot of them were pretty set on coming to Emerson and because of that, they tended to ask more in-depth questions,” the current freshman said. “When I took tours, I had no idea what major I wanted to be, but they had their major picked out and knew what they wanted to get into next year.”