I recently visited Elon University in Elon, North Carolina, where I toured the campus and spoke with the admissions office about the latest trends in admissions. Here are some takeaways from my visit:

· Fast rising in popularity, Elon is an undergraduate-focused university with just over 6,000 students (and fewer than 1,000 grad students) in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Still less selective than regional neighbors like Wake Forest, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, Elon shares many characteristics with those institutions: stately Georgian architecture set amidst a lush campus, a high proportion of students from out-of-state (many from the Northeast), vibrant student life and robust school spirit.

· The small downtown of Elon abuts campus, while the largest nearby town, Burlington (population 60,000), is a 10-minute drive away. Although the region is largely rural, larger cities and attractions are reachable by car: Greensboro (30 minutes), Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle (60 minutes), Charlotte (90 minutes), the Appalachian mountains to the west (2.5 hours) and the beach to the east (3 hours).

· Popular schools and majors include communications, business, nursing, public health and a fledgling engineering program. Unlike at many colleges, students can seamlessly move and double major between most schools, including business, communications and engineering. The highly competitive musical theater program sends the sixth-largest number of students to Broadway of any program in the country. Sports management majors regularly intern in Charlotte, where the ACC Conference is headquartered. Lastly, the business school recently launched a new financial technology major, and finance and accounting are popular subjects of study (the school partners with many large accounting firms).

· The average class size is 20, and students have excellent access to faculty, particularly given the small number of graduate students. There is also robust academic advising and support. All freshmen take a course taught by their academic advisor that helps them explore majors and build a tentative four-year plan. Advisors must sign off on a student’s schedule before it’s approved, which helps ensure that students aren’t navigating the waters alone, and students can seek free help from campus tutoring centers, which notify professors when students use their services so that the professors can also help.

· There is no honors college, but Elon offers cohort-based academic “fellowship” programs in different fields that award merit aid and provide students additional opportunities to take courses together, network, study abroad and receive more centralized advising.

· Like at many Southern universities, Greek life plays a sizable role on campus, with around 45% of students participating. There is also a plethora of other activities, such as clubs, acapella, movie nights every Friday at the university’s private movie theater, theater productions, painting, bingo, concerts, open mic nights and more.

· 75% of students live on campus, and those who live off-campus typically live within walking distance.

· 90% of students intern, and Elon has campus centers in DC, LA and NYC. 67% of student internships turn into full-time job offers.