Some students who had attended prior Envision events were surprised by the number of participants. One alumni of prior Envision conferences said she did not expect to be among 5,000 university students and 10,000 middle school and high school students at the conference. Prior conferences she had attended had around 200 to 400 students. Envision did not tell participants the actual number of attendees until they arrived. A former employee of Envision, Angie Peltzer, returned as a faculty adviser during the Presidential Youth Inaugural Conferences and said she believed the company was unprepared to handle the number of students. "It's hard to do 15,000 people when you've only done 500 before," Peltzer said. Another student attendee said the invitation gave her the impression "that there would be less people and it would be more intimate." She was surprised by the numbers who attended.