The Student Body

Gettysburg College actively recruits students who are energetic and engaged in their own education and the world around them. Its graduates are exceptional contributors, highly productive people, able to reason, communicate, relate, and lead. Like its namesake town, the College is steeped in history. It is dynamic and small enough that each student has a chance to shape his or her own experience and in small ways, the College itself. It is a place where students are not dwarfed by the institution but rather magnified by the experience.

The College has a strong regional base: 28% of Gettysburg students are from Pennsylvania, 18% are from New Jersey, 13% are from New York, 14% are from Maryland, and 27% are from other states or countries. The College has worked to create an atmosphere that is welcoming to all students that attracts an increasingly diverse variety of students from across the country and around the world. Racial diversity has steadily increased and the College is committed to making further gains. The student body is currently (2007-08) 87.7% Caucasian, 7.8% students of color, 1.5% international, and 3% unknown. Though the 2008-09 census of the student body is not yet available, we do know that the entering Class of 2012 included 79 students of color (11%) and 16 international students.

Approximately 94% of students live on campus, 86% live in College-operated housing facilities, and 8% live in on-campus fraternities. The remaining 6% live in the Gettysburg community. The College acquired a number of properties adjoining campus and three adjacent motels in town in order to meet the housing needs of a growing student population. These facilities are included as part of campus housing.

Career Development

The Center for Career Development is a resource for students of all academic majors and class years. Through individual appointments, programs, events, and interactive technology, students have access to resources that cover a wide range of career-related topics. The "Making Your Future Work" program helps students maximize their career development activities and planning while at Gettysburg with guaranteed career coaching, experiential opportunities like shadowing, externships, and internships, networking sessions, mentoring, and opportunities to connect with Gettysburg alumni and parents in various career fields. A few of the experiences available include: practice interviews with alumni, parents, and employers; insiders' advice about graduate schools; need-based assistance with internship expenses; externships; online and on-campus interviews; job fairs and much more.

Greek Life

Gettysburg College has an extensive history with fraternal organizations and currently has 18 groups on campus. During the 2008 spring semester, approximately 48% of the upper class male students and 31% of upper class female students were members. Ten men's organizations are housed and two more organizations are currently colonizing one of which is Phi Beta Sigma, Gettysburg's first historically African American men's organization. Gettysburg also has six women's organizations on campus including Sigma Gamma Rho, a traditionally African American Women's organization founded in 2004. The College implemented a deferred rush, in order to let first-year students become fully established before rush and new member education occurs. Chapters are required to conduct new member education in a four-week timeframe to reduce the impact of affiliation activities. 

Activities

At Gettysburg College there are few bystanders. The College encourages student engagement and participation in a wide variety of activities that provide cultural, recreational, social, and leadership opportunities and encourage holistic student development. Approximately 50% of students are involved in a campus organization or club. The College has a student-operated television station and FM-radio station, yearbook, newspaper, and literary magazine, musical groups (including six choirs, two bands, an a capella group, an orchestra, and a jazz ensemble), a Student Senate, Campus Activities Board, International Student Club, and a Black Student Union. Numerous special interest groups and more than 120 clubs and service organizations provide opportunities for students to develop leadership skills. The College also sponsors lectures, concerts, film series, art exhibits, and trips to Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. 

The Office of Experiential Education and the Gettysburg Recreation and Adventure Board (GRAB) is housed in the Division of College Life. Over the last ten years, the Office of Experiential Education has offered more than 400 wilderness programs ranging from one day to two weeks in length. Recent excursions have included: sea kayaking in Alaska and the Everglades, mountaineering in Peru and Colorado, and trekking in Italy, France and Scotland. The expeditions are led by students and alumni of GRAB who are trained in wilderness education, medicine, and group facilitation. The GRAB alumni base consists of many wonderful people who return to the College on their own time in order to share experiences with the campus community.

The College has also invested in social facilities, which has both reduced the pressure on Greek organizations to provide nearly all social activities and increased socialization among the greater population. Among the new facilities is The Attic, a student-run nightclub opened in March 2001 that accommodates 450 students. It includes a professionally engineered sound system for live performances/DJ music, a state-of-the-art lighting system for stage and dance floor, a large screen video projection system, a pool table, a bar/beverage serving area, and a serving kitchen.

Gettysburg College broke ground on its new Center for Athletics, Recreation, and Fitness on May 30, 2008. This facility will address the need for a new natatorium, expanded fitness space, increased space for intramurals and recreational activities while also supporting the strong intercollegiate program at Gettysburg. The facility is scheduled to open in late 2009.

Athletics

The athletics program also provides an avenue for student development. The College sponsors 24 varsity sports-12 for men and 12 for women-that compete at the NCAA Division III intercollegiate level. Some 25% of students participate in varsity and/or club intercollegiate sports, while a total of 80% of students participate in some intramural club and/or recreational sport. Gettysburg is a founding member of the Centennial Conference (CC), one of the premier conferences for NCAA Division III athletics. Conference membership includes some of the nation's finest liberal arts colleges, all of which are committed to excellence in academics and athletics. In the 16 years since the conference was founded as an all-sport conference in 1992, Gettysburg has won 80 conference titles, 30 more than any other member institution, and has consistently won the Centennial Conference President's Cup for Best Overall Record each year. Gettysburg teams have laid claim to the most titles in field hockey, men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, men's swimming, women's swimming, and volleyball. In 2008, three teams won conference crowns-women's swimming, women's golf, and men's lacrosse.

In addition to the team championships, Gettysburg student-athletes have accrued over 700 All-Centennial Conference First Team selections and individual conference championships in the past 16 seasons. A grand total of 50 Bullets athletes have been named CC Outstanding Performer/Player of the Year in their respective sport. The national intercollegiate sport scene has been inundated with Orange & Blue as 280 Gettysburg student-athletes from 19 varsity sports have amassed hundreds of All-America certificates and twelve Bullets achieved Academic All-American status. Gettysburg teams compete annually in a number of national championship tournaments. Both men's and women's lacrosse teams have played for the national title in the past decade, while the field hockey team won the school's only team national title (AIAW- 1980).

For more information on the Centennial Conference, please visit its website at www.centennial.org.