Hampshire College Welcomes Largest Incoming Class Since 2018

Source: Hampshire College News

On August 25, Hampshire College welcomed 275 new students to campus: 237 first-year and 38 transfer students.

The fall 2022 class represents a 73 percent increase from last year in terms of total incoming students. This strong growth is an important step in Hampshire’s five-year plan for returning to full enrollment and a strong indicator that the school’s  new curricular approach is compelling for prospective students and their families.

The class ranges in age from 17 to 53. Seventy-five of the new students are first-generation college students, 14 are international, and 30 percent identify as students of color. Seventeen incoming students mentioned having a family member who had attended Hampshire, among them one whose grandmother was in one of the College’s earliest classes.

In total, this cohort represents 35 states, as well as China, Nepal, Afghanistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Germany, India, Pakistan, South Africa, and South Korea. Students come from as nearby as Amherst, Northampton, and Easthampton and as far away as Durban, Dhaka, and Kathmandu. They speak English, Mandarin, German, French, and Jamaican Creole. One works with SistahSpeak—teaching and advocating for reproductive justice—and another was a finalist in the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights “Speak Truth to Power” video contest.

The group’s most popular academic interests are psychology;  film, video, and photography; creative writing; studio arts; music; animal behavior and cognition; biology and life sciences; history; animation and digital art; and gender, feminist, and queer studies. Some 100 students are looking forward to playing sports, such as cross-country, soccer, and basketball. Several own and/or run their own business: making jewelry, blacksmithing/leatherworking, and selling artwork, for example. They founded or cofounded Model UN and mock trial chapters, poetry clubs, a women’s social-justice club, multimedia clubs, culture clubs, a hiking team of Nanjing, GSAs/LGBTQIA+ clubs, a BIPOC international communities council board, and several nonprofits.

Some served as editor for a literary magazine, a yearbook, and a newspaper, and a few have seen their writing and photography published. Others have been recognized for their creative work at film festivals and some have been celebrated for their bands. They play a host of instruments, among them piccolo, guitar, drums, ukulele, trombone, French horn, trumpet, tenor sax, violin, euphonium, and piano. One toured with the Afro Latin Jazz Cats Youth Band across Cuba.

A few have worked on farms or with horses; others have trained dogs. One is a nationally ranked rock-climber, not the same student, however, who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Another is a rocket scientist, studying how to grow food on Mars. At least four are Eagle Scouts, and one received a Gold Award for Girl Scouts. Another was elected mayor of a town in Minecraft . . . and then reelected. Twice.