Per tradition, at the Founders\u2019 Day convocation ceremony, the faculty processes into Memorial Chapel, followed by the new first-year students, who are officially welcomed into the community of scholars by the keynote speaker. Another lesser-known tradition is that every year, the night before convocation, the keynote speaker receives notes of encouragement from those who have given the speech in previous years. This year\u2019s keynote speaker was Georgia Frank, the Charles A. Dana Professor of religion, interim director of Chapel House, and director of the Fund for the Study of the Great Religions. Welcoming the \u201cmembers of the mighty Class of 2028,\u201d Frank spoke of the importance of making connections with each other and the joy of self-exploration. \u201cAs those bonds deepen further, you learn something about yourself, your deepening interests and yearning, and how you find the world is growing ever wider and more deliciously perplexing by the day as you find your place in it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2192 <\/strong>20,915 applicants A look at Colgate’s newest incoming class<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":16725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[2760,2755,1165,1813,2758,2757],"coauthors":[135],"class_list":["post-16530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scene","tag-academic-traditions","tag-class-of-2028","tag-colgate-university","tag-convocation","tag-founders-day","tag-georgia-frank"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4iC","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/02\/mag-scene-hero-2028.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16530"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16748,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16530\/revisions\/16748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16530"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u2192 <\/strong>2,843 accepted
\u2192 <\/strong>2,450 Early Decision applications
\u2192 <\/strong>17% increase in Early Decision applications compared with last year
\u2192 <\/strong>40 states + D.C. represented
\u2192 <\/strong>75% from outside of New York State
\u2192 <\/strong>26% domestic students of color
\u2192 <\/strong>8% international students
\u2192 <\/strong>23 countries represented
\u2192 <\/strong>8,035 miles from farthest hometown (Hanoi, Vietnam)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"