Record breaking numbers for enrollment doesn’t stop USU from soaring

By Mikala Lindhardt

Utah State University is soaring with the largest enrollment in school history with 1,500 more students than last year, leading to changes in the mandatory Student Orientation, Advising and Registration, also known as SOAR, program.

Craig Whyte, the associate director of enrollment and recruitment, said SOAR had a historical year with a couple hundred more students.

“I do know SOAR had a record year because every incoming freshman student must complete SOAR,” he said. “They have had a busy summer, helping students with their registration and orientation.”



SOAR program coordinator, Jacob Van den Akker, said the SOAR office staff and the A-Team, current students at USU who are assigned to help incoming students, added more courses and increased class sizes, but were still able to maintain a 6-to-1 student adviser ratio. 

“We are starting up an orientation for regional campus students too," Van den Akker said. "All the incoming students will go through an online orientation, and then their campus may do additional on-campus orientation programming."

The program is designed for incoming freshmen and transfer students to help get them better aquatinted with the resources, policies and expectations on the Logan campus, Van den Akker said. He said students get the chance to have their questions answered directly and receive help signing up for classes for the first time.

Skyler Killian, a freshman, said his experience at SOAR was positive overall, but he felt overloaded with information.

“Sometimes it feels as though they just throw the information out there instead of showing us the application,” he said.

Van den Akker said students are anticipated to be overwhelmed after a full day of information, which is why they are encouraged to ask for clarification.

“Then we follow up with a couple of emails inviting them to continue to ask questions,” Van den Akker said.

He emphasized the role the program plays in helping students feel confident in beginning their college experience.

“You can go through college without anything, you can even be successful, but the amount of time to be successful is exponentially larger when you are not set in the right direction,” Van den Akker said.