enrollment
noun
Enrollment — the act of formally joining and being counted among a group
Definition
The act of enrolling
In depth
Enrollment is the act of enrolling, the process of formally joining a school, program, organization, or course of study, and being counted thereafter among its official members. The word carries a sense of belonging as much as bureaucracy, the moment a person formally becomes part of something larger.
Origin
The word descends from Old French enroller, to enroll or register, formed from en- (in) and rolle (a roll or list), referring originally to the literal rolled parchment documents on which official records were once kept. That image of names physically inscribed onto a rolled document survives, faintly, in the modern bureaucratic word.
Usage examples
"Enrollment at the university had grown steadily for over a decade before the sudden decline."
"Her enrollment in the night class, taken almost on a whim, quietly changed the direction of her entire career."
"The school's enrollment numbers determined how much funding it would receive the following year."
How to use it
Enrollment is the standard American spelling, common in educational and institutional writing, useful wherever a writer wants to describe both the formal process and the resulting count or status of membership within a group or program.
Related concepts
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