Reed Welcomes Class of ’23

Incoming class is 393 strong and hails from around the globe.

Welcoming students and parents to Convocation 2019, President Audrey Bilger said she felt a special affinity for the Class of ’23.

“You saw something in Reed and Reed saw something in you that led us to this moment,” she said.

Milyon Trulove, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid, said one criterion for recruiting new students is the likelihood they will help build community at Reed.

“We want to recruit the class that will make us better, that will bring us together,” he said, citing two new students as examples. One sat on the board for a group working to get young girls involved in the film industry and also was president of a cookie exchange club. The other student, who is deaf, expanded their high-school debate team from 12 to 70.

The incoming class boasts formidable intellectual credentials, with average SAT scores of 705 in math and 708 in evidence-based reading and writing.

Of the domestic incoming class, 115 students (32%) self-identified as US multicultural students: 28 Hispanic or Latino (8%), 60 Asian (17%), 14 Black or African American (4%), and 13 Native American (4%). Students who will be of the first generation to complete a four-year college degree number 24, or 6%.  Thirty-one have family that attended Reed.

There are also 43 international students (11%) and an additional 7 who attended a high school outside of the United States. Of our international students, 27 are from China, 8 from India, 2 from the United Kingdom, and 1 each from Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Belgium.

Community was the theme of the day. “You’re not in this alone,” Student Body President Pax Lloyd-Burchett ’21 told the new students, and he was echoed by orientation coordinators Henry Oberholtzer ’21 and Nitya Vikrant ’22. 

“Reed is distinctive and special,” President Bilger said. “At Reed, we learn together.”

The fact that students at Reed address their professors (and the new president) by their first names is the basis for an immediate connection, she added, quoting Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire: “Education is the practice of freedom.”

Tags: Campus Life, Students