Enrollment is up slightly from fall 2012 but an even more important figure is the significantly higher number of new students (first-time freshmen and transfers).

Freshman volleyball players (from left) Caitlin Olson, Tia Goertzen and Mattison Hiebner touch the threshing stone on their way out of the first convoation of the 2013–14 school year.Freshman volleyball players (from left) Caitlin Olson, Tia Goertzen and Mattison Hiebner touch the threshing stone on their way out of the first convoation of the 2013–14 school year.

The class of 2017 is the largest class in recent memory, said Todd Moore, vice president for admissions. It has eclipsed the size of any class since the turn of the century.

I am pleased with the diversity of the class, as well as the additional number of students who are attending from different parts of the United States, Moore added. Bethel’s overall enrollment for fall 2013 is 482. First-time freshmen number 123 and transfers 74.

There are two additional students from Germany, from the Bergische Universität in Wuppertal, as part of the exchange program that has been in place since 1951.