Elon University hosted scholarship weekend, its largest admitted students event, March 2 and 3. Over 2,300 people total registered to attend the event, including more than 900 prospective students, according to Vice President for Enrollment Greg Zaiser.
During the event, finalists for the eight fellows programs — honors, business, communications, Elon College, engineering, leadership, nursing and teaching — and for the honors and accelerated programs visited campus to interview with faculty and current students. Tours, open houses, information sessions and more were also held throughout Friday and Saturday.
Zaiser said in addition to those on campus this weekend, 200 students opted for virtual interviews.
Prospective business fellow Adaline Glassman said after her visit this weekend, she knew Elon is where she wants to be.
“I love the atmosphere of the small campus. It seems very inclusive and everybody seems to be enjoying where they are,” Glassman said.
Elon business fellow senior Grady Farrell said this weekend meant a lot to him when he first came to Elon University.
“It was great. It was really the reason why I decided to come to Elon. When I came down for fellows weekend, I met so many great people,” Farrell said. “And then the past four years with my cohort, we've traveled abroad together. We've taken some great classes and the whole program has really set me up really well for postgrad.”
This year, the university added an additional 100 spots across the fellows programs, according to Zaiser. Farrell said he is disappointed with the increasing size of the cohorts from a total size of 235 last year to 335 this upcoming year because he said it seems not as competitive as it used to be.
“I understand that Elon is trying to grow and the fellows program is huge. So they're trying to increase the number of students. I guess it does take away from the prestigiousness of it a little bit. But I understand that it is a competitive program, and that anyone who is accepted into it, I know that they'll do well, because I know it is a tough process,” Farrell said.
As for scholarships for the students, vice president for enrollment Greg Zaiser wrote in a statement to Elon News Network the scholarship amount for fellows will remain at $7,500 despite the tuition increases. After hearing about this Farrell said that he and his fellow peers were unhappy with the decision the school made.
“When I heard about that a lot of the people in my cohort, a lot of the upperclassmen were a bit infuriated when they heard that our scholarships were going to be bumped with the tuition rising. We couldn't do much about it,” Farrell said.
Junior Clara Watkins, leadership fellows student director, said she enjoys the increase in cohort sizes as it means more people with similar interests will be in each program.
“The leadership fellows program itself is built kind of smaller. But because of that, we have an advantage to grow and kind of move about as we see,” Watkins said.“They have a close interaction with each other, and they have these amazing experiences together. And we are very happy to see the program expanding because it also means you have more people to relate to.”