7500 is a projection for fall enrollment based on the assumption that some of the 8,000 that accepted offers don’t end up enrolling in August. Pay attention to the language they are using, 7500 is a projected number, not the number that have accepted the admission offer on May 1. My understanding is that about 5% usually ‘melt’ from the May number so that the August number is a little lower. So yeah, they are hoping 500+ don’t show up in August to get their projection.
There’s a graph in this Roanoke times article from yesterday that shows what a jump even the projected 7500 will be: