03/15/2024

Hello Fellow Loggers,

I hope you are all enjoying spring break week! It is important that we keep the community up to date as things shift during this complicated enrollment cycle. As you all know, the rollout of the new FAFSA by the Department of Education has been bumpy (if I am being generous). It has caused significant delays to universities around the country in their reception of vital financial aid data from our applying students. Just this week, institutions began receiving data that has historically been delivered by the Department of Education in the fall. These significant delays are complicating this enrollment cycle in ways that are beyond our control. 

The Enrollment Division has been steadfast in our decision to hold our enrollment deposit deadline to May 1st to this point, but as we have learned more in the past week about the planned slow rollout of the financial aid data and ongoing efforts to ensure our financial aid packaging process is in good working order, we have decided to extend our enrollment deposit deadline for first time in college (FTIC) students to June 1st. We sent out a message to our admitted students and families at 11 a.m. this morning to notify them of this change. The website has been updated as well.

We continue to encourage students to visit ahead of May 1 to ensure they can experience the vibrancy of campus while we are still in session, but anticipate some increased volumes of students who will wait until May with the deadline extension. That stated, we are thrilled to see the registration numbers for our four Puget Sound Bound events remain on par with last year’s numbers despite campus visit numbers being down nationally.

On a final note, the FAFSA delays may have thrown this cycle into a bit of chaos on a national scale, but we remain confident in our ability to yield this class. There are plenty of positive signs we are seeing in this admitted group that give us a sense of continued optimism despite the difficulties we have faced.

My great appreciation for the continued partnership across campus with the Enrollment Division as we work towards meeting our Fall 2024 enrollment goals. Particular thanks go to our Technology Services, Student Financial Services, and Admission Operations teams for their dedication to managing the complex update to our system, affording us the ability to provide financial aid to our students this year.

If you have any questions about any of this, please let me know.

To the heights!

Matthew Boyce, Ph.D. | Vice President for Enrollment