Meet the Pack’s Record-Breaking Class: By the Numbers

For the third consecutive year, NC State will welcome its largest class in university history, with 5,601 first-year students joining the Wolfpack this fall.

Take a look at the class of 2026 by the numbers.

The number of students of color in the new cohort represents a 21% increase over last year.

About 30% of incoming first-year students are people of color, more than half are women and almost 19% are first-generation students.

Nearly 40,000 people aspired to join NC State this year. Both first-year and transfer applications saw a 7% increase, setting a new record for total applications received.

The incoming class includes students from 98 North Carolina counties, 43 U.S. states and 41 countries from around the world.

As the state’s flagship STEM campus with a world-renowned College of Engineering, our No. 1 program for enrolled students continues to be engineering.

After engineering, the rest of our top 10 programs include exploratory studies, management, life sciences, animal science, sport management, psychology, fashion and textile management, political science, and criminology.

All figures are accurate as of Aug. 9, 2022.

This post was originally published in NC State News.