Orientation welcomes 855 new students
By Francisco Omar Fernandez Rodriguez Associate Editor There are 855 new students after the add/drop period ended this year, according to Iris Godes, vice president of Enrollment Management. She said the number isn’t finalized until the middle of October, but in Fall 2025, after add/drop, there were 773 new students. The number of applicants and admitted students were both about the same as last year though, she said. The difference came from how many students ended up choosing Framingham State in the end. Godes attributed the increased enrollment to increased financial aid, including the Framingham State Tuition Promise, as well as the updated website and overall better communication to prospective students. Among new students, 63 percent met the criteria for the Tuition Promise, she said. “We work very hard to show our prospective students that even at the stage before you get here, you feel that personal touch,” Godes said. In order to keep the new students, the University has hired new staff as student success coaches and is working with the National Institute for Student Success, she said. Access to the National Institute for Student Success, which is at Georgia State University, is funded by the state, according to a press release from the commonwealth from January this year. Godes said 62 percent of new students are first-generation and 59 percent are students of color. Associate Director of Student Experience and Orientation, Meghan Larkin, said Orientation staff started preparing for this year’s orientation last October, such as discussing what dates it would be. This was Larkin’s fourth orientation, and it has been different each year, she said. It starts to get really exciting at the open houses when they start to meet the new students, she added. She worked with the Assistant Director of Student Experience and Orientation, Jared Magno, who supervises and trains the orientation leaders. There were 15 orientation leaders this year, an increase from the 12 last year, she said. This year, the new class of students are really interested in getting involved in extracurriculars and making “this experience their own,” Larkin said. “They very clearly want to do stuff, and that showed up when they were talking with the orientation leaders, or even just talking with themselves in small groups,” Larkin said. They were “information hungry” about opportunities on campus, she said. Orientation itself was a three-day experience, not including move-in day, she said. The first day only required first-year students to attend, as it was structured more toward them than the transfers, she said. It focused on topics for students who weren’t used to college, she added. The second and third days had more general topics while also being more specific to the University, such as what the names of specific Framingham State services are, Larkin said. “We’ve seen that transfer students understand what it is to be a college student. They’ve done it before,” Larkin said. The transfer students also have a mix-and-mingle activity to get to know other transfers, she added. At the University Welcome, at the end of orientation, President Nancy Niemi and Provost Kristen Porter-Utley spoke to the incoming class, she said. English Professor Jennifer De Leon and English Major Marlín Polanco spoke at the University Welcome as well, sharing their experiences and talking about what college provides, Larkin said. Larkin said orientation is a structured environment meant to teach students how to work on an unstructured day, which is what college typically is. There was free time in their orientation schedules to help them adjust, she added. “First-year students, especially a traditional first-year student, come from this environment that’s structured and have to learn how to manage time in a more effective way than maybe they did in high school. This isn’t everybody, I’m generalizing,” Larkin said. Out of the 831 students registered for classes as of Aug. 30, 690 attended orientation, which is up from last year’s 615, she said. Larkin said orientation involves every part of the University. “It’s so amazing every year to see the campus come together and work as a unit to make sure that our new students get an amazing first impression of what college life will be like here for them,” Larkin said. Freshman early childhood education major Gabby Ilin said she enjoyed orientation and felt at home on campus. “Everything was so much fun, and I had never been to any place where I already felt welcomed like FSU,” Ilin said. Freshman criminal justice major Lucy Reid said she enjoyed how each day in orientation was unique. “I loved how each day we got to do different activities and to meet new people,” Reid said. Freshman Brenda Mejia said she had adjusted to campus well. “The professors have been super nice, super understanding, even when we get lost around campus,” Mejia said. Freshman wildlife and environmental biology major Dani Bosque said orientation was a great opportunity to “conquer a little bit of my social anxiety.”
