Many Western Pa. colleges still looking to enroll students for fall in late push

Acceptance letter in hand, Dana Sinatra appeared to be destined to enroll at Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, and play basketball there.

But Sinatra, 19, a forward on her high school basketball team, began to have doubts several months ago about the 1½-hour travel distance from her McDonald home. Then she reached a conclusion.

“I decided that I just don’t want to do it,” she said.

Fast forward to this summer, when many college-bound students began packing up to head off to colleges and universities they selected months ago. That’s when Sinatra toured La Roche University, a small Catholic institution in McCandless that was much closer to her home.

“I was nervous for a while until my tour because I just didn’t know if they were going to have a dorm room for me, because it was so last minute,” she said.

As it turns out, they did.

So do hundreds of other colleges.

In fact, people can leave a campus tour with $25,000 or more in financial aid, as Sinatra did.

Welcome to a part of the college admission calendar that is easily overlooked. Deep in summer, many schools that still have space for the fall actively woo prospects who delayed their college search or had a change in plans.

It can be a godsend for those otherwise faced with a prospect of postponing their higher education plans. For colleges, the weeks approaching fall are increasingly important with higher education enrollment down nationally.

Admission staff are practiced at providing on-the-spot offers for students who bring high school transcripts with them. Even if some financial aid deadlines have passed, a student with the right combination of need and merit can walk away with a sizable aid package.

“It will go right up to the start of classes, and we’ve had people show up on the day classes start wanting to begin their academic career,” said James E. “Chip” Weisgerber, vice president of enrollment management at La Roche. “But typically, we also see more transfer students then.”

La Roche, with room for a couple of dozen more on-campus students as of this past week, begins fall classes Aug. 21. Other schools start late this month and early next.

Sinatra, a 2022 graduate of Fort Cherry High School who delayed her college hunt because she underwent back surgery, left her La Roche campus tour on July 21 knowing that she had a spacious room in Bold Hall, a freshman dorm that offers private bathrooms and is a short walk to classes.

Plus, she scored a merit scholarship and other financial aid topping $25,000.

“I’m only spending $10,000 a year altogether,” said Sinatra, who plans to study radiology. “It’s crazy. My friends who were ready to go and everything before me, I’m paying the same amount as they are.”

Relief was evident in her voice.

“I mean, you see all your friends kind of going places and everything,” she said, pausing for a second. “But I’m good now.”

Every year, the National Association for College Admission Counseling publishes a list of colleges and universities with openings after May 1, the date students traditionally declare their fall enrollment choices.

This year, 341 institutions reported some combination of classroom space, available housing and financial aid, said Melissa Clinedinst, associate director of research for the Arlington, Va.-based association.

The schools range from small, private liberal arts colleges to large, public universities with more than 20,000 students.

Elite schools such as the Ivy League’s Harvard and Yale are not included in the list.

“They never show up for obvious reasons. Classes are usually full (by summer) and they use waitlists” Clinedinst said.

Along with La Roche, the two dozen Pennsylvania campuses on this year’s list included Allegheny College, Carlow University, Duquesne University, Juniata College, PennWest University and Westminster College.

The University of Pittsburgh and Penn State University are there too, but only their branch campuses have openings, spokespeople at both institutions said.

Some institutions are regulars on the yearly NACAC list.

Others are there this year because of the unexpected, such as incorrectly predicting the share of accepted students who actually choose to enroll. If schools underestimate that share, students can end up in temporary housing on an overcrowded campus until a bed opens up. Overestimating how many students will enroll means revenue-generating beds go unfilled.

“For some of the smaller, tuition-dependent schools, hitting the enrollment target is really important,” Clinedinst said.

The punishing state of the student market was driven home earlier this month at debt-ridden Alderson Broaddus University in Philippi, W.Va., which announced that it would be shutting down after 150 years.

Some of those students are now considering a future at Pittsburgh’s Point Park University, which expects to meet with and accept new and transfer applicants as students are preparing to move in for the Aug. 28 start of classes.

“You have the opportunity to change the trajectory of a student’s life,” Marlin Collingwood, vice president for enrollment at Point Park, said of late admissions.

At Westminster College in New Wilmington, Caitlin DeSantis, associate director of admissions, said she is used to panicked mid-summer phone calls from students and parents asking if it’s too late to enroll.

Some arrive for tours as if dressed for a job interview. Others are in shorts and flip-flops.

Sometimes, she said, “life happens” and brings those students to campus over the summer. For example, perhaps a student’s preferred program at another campus is no longer available. Or a boyfriend and girlfriend who had planned to attend the same school may decide they need some distance.

Some initially envision themselves attending a school thousands of miles away, then decide they “don’t want to be six states away and require a plane ride every time to come home,” La Roche’s Weisgerber said.

“Students, especially if they are from rural areas, think they want that big city experience, but then they say, ‘That’s not what I’m comfortable with,’”’ DeSantis said.

Westminster, about an hour north of Pittsburgh, enrolls 1,200 students on a picturesque, 300-acre campus that includes Collegiate Gothic Old Main, a stone and limestone structure with a bell tower.

Before the college market slumped, Westminster was closer to 2,000 students and it had a waiting list, DeSantis said.

“A lot of schools have had to go that rolling admission route. They need to keep their doors open,” she said. “The way we look at it is we have an add/drop period (in which) students can add a class or drop a class up until the first week of school. So why not accept kids up until the first week of school?”

Westminster aims each year to enroll a new class of 350 students. It has enrolled about 330 for the coming school year, meaning it can take about 20 more students, DeSantis said.

Even so, Westminster has not softened its admission standards and, in fact, recently raised the minimum required GPA to 2.5.

Those who apply earlier have a wider pick of financial aid, as some scholarship and state grant deadlines have passed. But a student who has high school transcripts and fills out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid can still do well.

At one recent event, DeSantis said, “We offered same-day decisions and two of our students walked away with $30,000, right off the bat.”

At La Roche, Sinatra said the intimacy of the campus resembled that of her small high school. Another prospect, Gavin Ward, 23, of Sewickley, had a similar reaction to the campus when he visited recently. He said he now plans to transfer in from the Community College of Allegheny County to study psychology.

Ward said La Roche accepted all of his CCAC credits.

“That kind of made it an obvious decision,” he said.