Junior and senior high school students received a rude awakening when in-person learning was interrupted by the pandemic last March, effectively disparaging any hope of typical academic milestones like attending prom or graduation. Despite a lack of celebration, many set out to pursue higher education and continue their academic career. 

Chapman University’s Office of Admission revealed a record number — over 15,000 — of first-year students applied for the fall 2021 semester. Further, the incoming class is set to be the most diverse the institution has seen, with slightly over 50% of admitted students identifying as African American, Latinx, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander or of multiple ethnicities.

Brandon Nakata, a 17-year-old high school senior from Ventura County who identifies as Japanese, white and Mexican, chose Chapman because of its intimate class size and close proximity to home. However, he told The Panther the university’s advertisement of its goals to increase diversity and inclusion cemented his school preference.

“Growing up, I’ve been in a very diverse household, so it honestly just felt right to go somewhere where I’d be welcomed for being diverse,” Nakata said.

In fall 2020, Chapman’s undergraduate student population was 50.4% white, 16.6% Hispanic or Latino and 14.2% Asian. In recent academic years, current and former students have protested against racial issues on campus, including former Chapman law professor John Eastman for his comments about Vice President Kamala Harris, former student Dayton Kingery and “The Birth of a Nation” poster in Marion Knott Studios.

Set to graduate from high school with an in-person ceremony at the end of May, Nakata plans on continuing his education at Chapman as a business administration major and is eager to join the university’s Accounting Society. He said that his family is elated he will be the first person in his family to commit to a 4-year university, let alone Chapman. He will join the 17.5% of first-generation college students in the incoming class.

“My grandma started to cry because she was so proud of me and my grandpa was kind of cocky, like, ‘I knew you would get into a really good college,’” Nakata said.

Applying to Chapman without SAT or ACT test scores due to the university’s new “test-optional” policy, Nakata wrote his Chapman essays to demonstrate his scholarship and character as a prospective student. The Office of Admission said it will no longer require standardized tests because its multi-year research study demonstrated standardized test scores do not significantly correlate with a student's success at Chapman. 

The office’s new policy will also work to expand education access to students who may not have been admitted due to poor scores on a single test. Nakata isn’t the only senior to apply to Chapman without one; 79% of applicants in Chapman’s fall 2021 pool applied test-optional. 

Rachel Schofield, an 18-year-old from Chicago, Illinois, and incoming business administration major, also applied and was admitted to Chapman without standardized test scores. Schofield explained that her college counselor suggested Chapman as a viable option, but that a TikTok she saw last year of Chapman’s campus was what truly resonated with her. Although she admitted to frequently reevaluating her college application list, Chapman was the one school that consistently made the cut due to its location, size and advertised diversity, she said. 

“That really stuck out to me — having the school genuinely care about who the students are as people and not just their grades and how well they did on the ACT,” Schofield said.

Having attended the same school from kindergarten to her senior year of high school, Schofield told The Panther she never was allowed the opportunity to interact with a diverse array of people who come from different cultures and socioeconomic statuses. 

“Diversity was such an important part of choosing the right college for me,” said Schofield, who identifies as both Black and white. “It makes me so happy to hear that the diversity in my grade is at an all-time high, because I was missing that for so long.”

The incoming class includes students from all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Guam, Marshall Islands and Puerto Rico. Slightly more than half of the admitted students identify as African American, Latinx, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander or of multiple ethnicities.

Sasha Neilson, an 18-year-old from Portland, Oregon and incoming psychology major, echoed the same sentiment. Like Nakata and Schofield, Neilson identifies as biracial. Her mother immigrated to the U.S. from Japan in 1998.

An Instagram account has been created for the class of 2025, where pictures and a short bio are posted of incoming students. Neilson explained that the class has already formed connections together with a 500-person group chat on LoopChat and smaller major-based Snapchat groups. 

“Even now, we have big group chats for my class,” Neilson said. “It already seems like a really great community, so I’m just really excited to be there.”