The admission counselors here at Shippensburg University really have their work cut out for them. While sifting through the yearly stack of applications, admission counselors — by hand — read every application the admission office receives.

Word for word, even the slightest bit of information listed on an application is read by the counselors, and it is not just the SAT scores in which they are interested.

Along with those scores, what matters to the admissions office are grade point average, letters of recommendation, the high school curriculum and yes- — the essay at the bottom of the application, according t0 acting Dean of Admissions, Bill Washabaugh.

Washabaugh added that though SAT scores are not the only thing the counselors look at, they have seen a 10 point increase in the mean SAT scores for the 2013 incoming class.

Yet, it is not just the top students the counselors want to bring to the university — they also wish to welcome a new diverse group of students to the SU family every year.

With 91 percent of the students being of in-state residency and 9 percent being from out of state, the diversity of the incoming class is from all different ends of the spectrum. Not limited to ethnicity, counselors seek the admission of traditional students, non-traditional students, veterans and international students.

Also, while Washabaugh was not able to release the exact number of accepted students admitted to SU, he was able to say that there has not been any substantial spike in admissions and that the admissions have been the same compared to the previous academic school years.

He added that 55 percent of the incoming students were female and 45 percent were male.

He also noted that 30 percent of those incoming students are living on campus, which furthermore backs up their mission of getting students of all walks of life enrolled in SU.

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