Welcoming New Students, Class of 2019
Orientation begins for 339 first-year students and 52 new transfer students Thursday, Aug. 27. The first day of classes for all Westmont students is Monday, Aug. 31. The new students represent four countries and 31 states. Thirty students come from Santa Barbara County and 12 are international, missionary or third-culture students. More than a third (119) of the incoming class is North American ethnic minorities. The class is 43 percent male and 57 percent female. The top five majors are biology, economics and business, kinesiology, psychology and communication studies.
This year, four Monroe Scholars have received full-tuition scholarships: Noel Hilst of Bainbridge Island, Wash., Bethany Le of Carlsbad, Léal Makaroff of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Olivia Stowell of Fort Collins, Colo. They earned a combined average honors GPA of 4.5 and an average SAT score of 1530 (out of 1600).
Transfer students come from a variety of acclaimed colleges, including Freed Hardeman University, Cal State University Los Angeles, Texas Christian University, California Baptist University, Lawrence University, Vanguard University, Cal Poly Pomona, San Francisco State and Point Loma Nazarene University.
The average GPA of incoming first-year students is 3.8 with an average SAT (critical reading and math) score of 1180. Westmont offered academic merit scholarships to 73 percent of first-year students ranging from $10,000-full tuition. Eighty-three percent of transfer students earned academic scholarships ranging from $7,000-$10,500.
During Orientation on Thursday, new students will move into residence halls during the morning. Students and their families will hear a message from Campus Pastor Ben Patterson at Welcome Chapel from 2-3 p.m. in Murchison Gym. Michael Everest, professor of chemistry, examines “Science and Religion in the Quest of Truth,” a book by John Polkinghorne, in the First Lecture at 7 p.m. in Page Multipurpose Room.
The Service of Commitment, a formal ceremony with robed faculty that welcomes students to the Westmont community, takes place Friday, Aug. 28, at 3 p.m. beginning in Murchison Gym.