Just moments before the first day of classes, students at Saint Louis University are anticipating the newest arrivals, the freshmen.
Saint Louis University’s class of 2005 will not be the biggest. However, it just may turn out to be the brightest.
While the number of freshmen enrolled for the fall semester is lower than anticipated, members of the Admissions office are fairly confident that there will be plenty of students matriculating on campus.
Of the currently enrolled students, the aggregate ACT score is even higher than that of the class of 2004-which was praised as the biggest and brightest of the University.
The number of freshmen enrolled for the fall semester is lower than anticipated. In January, the target number for freshmen was 1,380, the same number allotted for students in the 2004 class. By May, the number had jumped to 1,410. Now, just days before the beginning of the semester, that figure has dropped to 1,360.
And we haven’t made it yet, according to officials from Undergraduate Admissions. While a definite number cannot be set until near the end of September when the University census will be taken, the number of freshmen currently enrolled is near 1,330, according to Scott Belobrajdic, director of Undergraduate Admissions. This number is still 30 students below the ever-fluctuating target for the freshmen class.
The good news is that the campus will not seem empty due to the lower number of freshmen. Actually, the University is anticipating more transfer students than originally predicted.
“Combining transfer students plus freshmen, our target was 1700,” Belobrajdic said. “We are about 10 students over that number. Overall, we’re looking pretty good for the fall.”
The target for students transferring from other colleges and universities was about 340. Currently, approximately 370 transfer students are enrolled this fall, according to Belobrajdic.
The 1,330 freshman class total is up quite a bit from the July estimates, which only had 1,262 students enrolled.
Most students from the summer enrichment program at SLU for incoming freshmen chose to fully enroll at the University, according to Belobrajdic.
Another reason for the jump in numbers was an “aggressive” follow-up to students who were already accepted into the University. Belobrajdic said, “Most of the students we worked with had already applied and been accepted.”
Following the banner enrollment for the class of 2004, a record of 1,398, some SLU students wonder why there was trouble in meeting the projections for the class of 2005.
That’s due to two factors: the retention of current students has remained higher than originally anticipated; and the number of applicants accepting their place at SLU was lower than that of last year, according to Ned Harris, associate provost for Enrollment and Academic Services. The purpose of a target number of students helps to create the University’s budget, which was set in January.
“Overall, we made our target,” said Harris. “Because of that, the budget will be okay . This year, we made budget. We just didn’t exceed it like last year.”
The bottom line for the class of 2004: More freshmen than anticipated enrolled, resulting in the largest freshman class ever. SLU students may remember the crunch when trying to find adequate housing for new freshmen.
In 2000, 69 percent of the students applying to SLU were accepted.
That freshman class ended up with 1,398 students and the highest aggregate ACT score yet, earning the title of the biggest and the brightest ever to attend SLU. The class of 2005, will claim the title of the “smartest” with an aggregate ACT score of 26.4, three-tenths higher than the class of 2004. “The quality of these students is extremely high,” Belobrajdic said.
The class of 2005 may also prove to be the most involved. This year’s SLU101 sessions for incoming freshmen had a record number of students attend, despite struggling admissions numbers.
In the future, targets for the number of freshmen might be extra wide, according to Harris. “We simply have a different set of data to work with now.”
Some good has come of this situation. “If nothing else, this prompted [the Admissions department] to institutionalize a lot of these processes we’ve implemented this summer to follow up on some incoming freshmen who might fail to respond or register for classes,” Harris said.
