The 491-member Bates Class of 2028 arrives on Thursday, Aug. 29, bringing with it youthful hopes and aspirations — along with two new records for Bates admission. Chosen from the largest applicant pool in the college’s history, the class is also the most racially diverse ever.
With a total of 32 percent of the class identifying as U.S. students of color, the college saw an increase in matriculation among both Black and Latinx students specifically, despite new challenges imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on college admission.
The new class was selected from 10,029 applications, the third straight year of record interest in attending Bates. This fall, the overall campus enrollment is expected to be approximately 1,780 students, with another 188 students, mostly juniors, studying abroad.
In terms of other demographics, the new students come from 38 states plus Washington, D.C., and 29 countries outside the U.S. Ten percent of the class is first-generation to college, and international students also comprise 10 percent of the class.
The home states of the Class of 2028 reflect the college’s strategic efforts to address the shifting U.S. population. New England’s share of the U.S. population continues to grow smaller, while the Southeast, Southwest, and West continue to grow. Over the last decade, Bates has increased the number of students from the Southeast, Southwest, and West by 21 percent.
Opening Day
The start of New Student Orientation is Opening Day, where a high-energy team of nearly 200 upperclass Bates students, along with dozens of professional Bates staff members, will greet and help new students move their gear into campus residences. (Fun fact: the move-in helpers will use 61 two-wheel dollies on Opening Day.)
Among the helpers will be 60 members of the college’s Residential Life student staff. These students live and work in first-year residences as Junior Advisors, Community Advisors, and Team Leaders during the year, mentoring and supporting new students and creating community within all Bates residences.
In addition to Residence Life student staff, other student leaders helping the newbies get settled and feeling connected from Day 1 include upperclass varsity athletes, who have already arrived to begin practices; student mentors to first-generation students with the college’s Kessler Scholars program; community-engaged leaders with the Harward Center; and AESOP trip leaders preparing for three-day outings all over Lewiston and Maine.
The new Bobcats and returning students will move into campus residences that date all the way back to the college’s opening in 1855 (Parker Hall) as well as one residence, 96 Campus Avenue, that hasn’t ever had a Bates head on a pillow.
The newest Bates residence, having been acquired several years ago, was just recently renovated by the college after previously serving as a convent for neighboring St. Mary’s Hospital for more than four decades, among other uses.
Living Arrangements
These are the campus residences, and the number of first-year students in each, for the Class of 2028:
- Page Hall: 97 first-year students
- Parker Hall: 80
- Wentworth Adams: 57
- Rand Hall: 56
- Gillespie Hall: 44
- Chu Hall: 42
- Kalperis Hall: 41
- Milliken House: 28
- Clason House: 27
- Frye House: 23
With move-in complete by early afternoon, the new students and their families and loved ones will hear a welcome from President Garry W. Jenkins and Leigh Weisenburger, vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid.
First-Year Experience
Starting with Thursday’s Opening Day, the college’s award-winning First-Year Experience program of holistic and consistent support swings into action.
On Friday, the new students attend their first class, a get-to-know-you session of their First-Year Seminar, a course that all first-years take and where instructors serve as the new students’ academic advisers. Some sample seminar topics this year are “Sex in the Brain,” “Holocaust on Stage,” “Physics of Climate Change,” and “Heroes or Villains? Columbus and Castro.” (Bates classes officially begin on Sept. 4.)
On Friday evening, AESOP, the Annual Entering Student Orientation Program of on- and off-campus overnight trips led by current students, kicks off with a boisterous meet-and-greet welcome party, where trip leaders arrive in wild costumes to announce their trips to the first-year class assembled at Keigwin Amphitheater.
Continuing until Monday, this year’s trips include traditional outdoor excursions to places like Grafton Notch and Flagstaff Lake, and creative offerings like “Film Festival,” offering hands-on experience in film production, and “CulinarySOP,” a food-infused program featuring a cooking lesson from Bates chefs.
The college community will gather on Sept. 3, the day before classes begin, for opening Convocation, featuring guest speaker Sonja Pieck, Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies, followed by the memorial tree planting of a hop hornbeam near a walkway leading to Hathorn Hall. The first home sports game is that day, a 5 p.m. women’s soccer match vs. Husson University.
‘Where They Are’
During the 2023–24 recruiting season, the Bates admission team visited hundreds of high schools and participated in over 300 college fairs and events across 26 states and 14 countries. “We want to meet students, families, and counselors where they are: in hometowns, neighborhoods, and schools. We strive to be accessible — always,” says Weisenburger.
Last spring, to engage newly admitted students, the team employed personalized outreach like phone calls, emails, and handwritten notes, alongside on-campus visits and virtual events.
“A Bates education is personal. Even at this scale, with an applicant pool over 10,000, we connect with thousands of potential Bates students and we’re committed to that personal touch. That is the Bates way. It starts with recruiting and carries into the classroom from Day One,” says Weisenburger.
