Baker University students walk to class Monday on the Baldwin City campus. Early enrollment numbers indicate that this year's freshman class ties the record for size.

As he walked to class Monday on the Baker University campus, freshman Kyle Sadosky said the Baldwin City school’s distance from his home was a big factor in his choosing it.

“I’m from Lawrence,” he said. “It’s close enough to home that I can go visit whenever I want, but far enough for me to be on my own.”

The 2017 Free State High School graduate said he considered other schools before choosing Baker. Another big factor was the comfort he felt with the size of the university and the Baldwin City community, he said.

“KU is so big I felt like I’d get lost and not have the contact with professors you get at a smaller university,” he said.

Sadosky is a member of a Baker freshman class that may tie the record as the school’s largest, said Danielle Yearout, Baker vice president of enrollment and marketing. The school has 257 freshmen on campus this year, she said. If that number holds up until Baker’s official enrollment date of Sept. 20, the freshman class will equal the record of the Baker 2009 freshman class, she said.

“There really hasn’t been any other class that came anywhere close to that,” she said. “We’ve had two strong classes back to back.”

Counting transfers, Baker had 309 new students on campus when classes started last week, Yearout said. That number, although still unofficial, eclipsed the record of 308 new students, which was also set in 2009, she said. The university has an early total enrollment number of 882 undergraduate students at its Baldwin City campus.

A few students might withdraw before the official enrollment date, but Yearout said school officials were very pleased with the enrollment numbers.

Baker reported 241 freshmen at the start of school last year. It had 51 transfer students and a total enrollment of 881 students.

University President Lynne Murray released a statement Friday attributing the enrollment success to a commitment of the entire university community to prioritizing recruitment.

Yearout said that shared commitment stemmed from a task force Murray established two years ago on enrollment. As a result, the school became much more transfer-friendly, redesigned its website and committed to prioritizing enrollment and student success, she said.

“Our faculty attends and is engaged in all admissions events and our scholarship days,” she said. “They are actively involved in recruitment, as well.”

The close relationship students develop with their professors is one of Baker’s big draws, and it’s pitched to students during recruitment, Yearout said.

“We perform very well on faculty engagement on our own student surveys and on the annual National Survey of Student Engagement,” she said.

Yearout said Baker’s recent success in sports was also a factor in its enrollment success. The publicity associated with the school’s football and girls basketball teams playing for national championships helped increase awareness of the university. That is important at a university where more than half of undergraduate students have an athletic scholarship, she said.

“We have had a lot of success with many of our sports,” she said. “Our athletes performing well on and off the field is a big help in recruitment.”

Baker could manage an enrollment of about 1,000 students before it would have to consider significant changes to its Baldwin City campus, Yearout said. At that point, she said, it would need more room in its residence halls.

The school could get relief by adding a second bed in some dorm rooms or relaxing rules that require students to live in campus housing or greek houses, Yearout said. Expansion of greek houses could also help with any housing needs that develop.