This fall, LSU saw the enrollment of 7,912 first-year students, the largest incoming class in the school’s history, according to a census completed by LSU.
This enrollment increase was to be expected as LSU received over 46,000 applicants for the fall semester. LSU had an acceptance rate of 74%, with just over 34,000 students accepted. For comparison, there were just over 42,000 applicants in 2023 and 7,494 full-time first-year students enrolled at a 74.5% acceptance rate. LSU kept its students with a retention rate of 84% last year.
The ACT composite score is 27 for the 2024 full-time first-year cohort, another record for the university. In addition, the high school weighted transcript GPA is 3.83, the highest the university has ever seen from an incoming class.
The freshman class is 62.2% female. It is 26.8% Black and 11.9% Hispanic. First generation students make up 32.3% of the class and 59.6% of the class are in-state students.
Last fall, LSU President William F. Tate IV said the goal wasn’t to grow enrollment numbers anymore, pointing out that the campus would need to undergo significant infrastructure changes to accommodate that kind of capacity. This has proven to be true, as Residential Life hustled to find housing for the incoming class this fall.
“We have not, as an institution, made the decision necessarily of growing our classes,” said Danny Barrow, LSU’s vice president of Enrollment Management and Student Success. But while enrollment numbers have grown, he said that he is “always looking to continuously improve the recruitment, the transition and the experiences for students coming to LSU.”
“At no point do we want students to ever feel like a number,” Barrow said. “When you come to LSU, you want to feel that at least a person in the administration or on the faculty has your back, and we know that is an important part to ensuring that students are going to graduate timely and then be prepared for life after college.”
Barrow said that his own time in college was memorable. He received a Pell Grant and was one of the first in his family to go to college, where he said his life was changed by faculty members and staff.
“So what we try to do every day,” Barrow said, “is to ensure that every student here at LSU has a transformative educational experience that they can live out their biggest dreams.”
LSU does not currently have a cap on how many students may be accepted by the university, but Barrow said each application is read twice by a member of the admissions committee. The acceptance rate has gotten smaller over the last three years, with 2022 at 76.1% and 2023 at 74.5%.
