Nearly 7,000 new undergraduates — an estimated 4,144 freshmen and 2,834 transfer students — have arrived at Temple for the 2008-09 academic year.

When the add/drop period ends on Sept. 15, it will conclude the busiest annual admissions cycle in the history of the university.

Temple received 18,672 completed freshman applications, 4 percent more than last year's record high and 50 percent more than the university received in 2000. More than 30,000 prospective students and their families visited Temple's Main Campus in 2007, shattering the 2006 record by nearly 20 percent.

The freshmen are the most highly qualified class ever to arrive at Temple, with an average SAT score of 1107 — 20

points higher than last year and 90 points higher than the national average — and an average high school grade point average of 3.37, up 0.02 from last year. Temple's Honors Program has enrolled a record 430 freshmen.

"I am delighted to welcome this extraordinary group of new students to Temple," President Ann Weaver Hart said. "They are beginning their journey at a time of great energy and transition as we prepare to celebrate Temple's 125th anniversary.

"They will be the first to experience the new General Education program; the first to benefit from new facilities for the Fox School of Business, Tyler School of Art and the School of Medicine; and among the first to enjoy concerts, lectures, class gatherings and entertainment events in a revitalized Baptist Temple."

For many freshmen and transfer students, the promise of new and renovated facilities played a major role in attracting them to Temple.

"Seeing all the growth and development on campus was the sign I needed to see that Temple is investing in students," said Lindsey Bitler, a freshman Honors student from Birdsboro, Pa., enrolled in the School of Communications and Theater. "If the university isn't growing then you can't grow with it."

At the Tyler School of Art, which will move into a $75 million home in January 2009 at Temple's Main Campus after 75 years in suburban Elkins Park, freshman applications for fall 2008 surged by more than 28 percent compared to last year. That is an increase in interest that students and Tyler admissions staff alike attribute to the soon-to-be-completed facility, its urban location and its proximity to Temple's Boyer College of Music and Dance and School of Communications and Theater, creating an arts hub at Main Campus.

"I didn't know much about Temple until a representative came to my high school and started talking about the new Tyler building," said Keristen Gaber of Yardley, Pa., a freshman Honors student at Tyler. "That caught my interest. Why would I give up an opportunity to have access to a brand new facility with brand new studios? Besides, I really wanted to go to a city with all the different opportunities for first-hand experiences and all the diversity. And as a musician, I like the idea of the music school being really close."

About 54 percent of Temple's new students are from Philadelphia and the four surrounding Pennsylvania counties; 17 percent are from elsewhere in the state. Another 29 percent are from out-of-state or one of more than 100 nations abroad.

There is also a growing international presence among Temple’s students. For example, 69 new students are from the People's Republic of China, 86 percent more than last year.

About one third of new freshmen identified themselves as students of color, while another 6 percent identified their ethnicity as "other."