One of these programs, a $2,500-a-year, merit-based scholarship that was added to the mix just this semester, has been credited by a senior UB administrator with reversing the decline in the profile of the entering class and making UB competitive with private institutions for the best students.

The scholarships are part of a concerted effort at UB to compete with private institutions in recruiting the best and brightest students to the university. Similar efforts also are under way at other SUNY institutions.

A total of 526 first-semester freshmen received partial scholarships of at least $2,500, a sum of $1,333,000 for the 1998-99 academic year. In addition, 22 freshmen were awarded full scholarships as Distinguished Honors Scholars and one student received the full Robert I. and Eleanor Z. Millonzi Honors Scholarship for the Performing Arts.

Over the past few years, UB has increased both the numbers of students accepted into the University Honors Program and the amount of money awarded to those students. Besides yearly scholarships, members of the Honors Program receive special programming, such as access to faculty mentors, priority course enrollment, special seminars and the opportunity to live in honors housing units.

The bulk of freshmen enrolled in the Honors Program this fall-157 students-were given awards of $2,500 a year for four years. In addition, 12 students are receiving $4,000 a year for four years, and seven students are receiving performing-and-creative-arts scholarships of $2,500 a year for four years.

UB also has established "Challenge Scholarships" that provide students with $2,500 for the first year. At the end of that year, they will be invited to join the Honors Program-and retain the $2,500 scholarship for the next three years-if they have a grade-point average of 3.5, said Josephine Capuana, administrative director for the Honors Program. Those scholarships were given to 143 freshmen.

And for the first time this semester, UB has awarded 207 students "Merit-based Scholarships" of $2,500 a year for four years. These awards, which are offered to students who rank just below the level to qualify for the Honors Program or Challenge Scholarships, are based on cumulative high-school average through the junior year, rank in the graduating class and SAT or ACT scores, said David Cook, assistant director of admissions. Cook noted that the Admissions Office offered these scholarships to 838 applicants, with 207 enrolling, a yield of about 27 percent.

Nicolas Goodman, vice provost for undergraduate education, credits the merit-based scholarships with "significantly" increasing the mean SAT score for the Class of 2002 to 1145 from the mean score of 1134 for freshmen who entered UB in the Fall of 1997.

"The effect will be felt in our classrooms and seen in our retention numbers," Goodman said.

He noted that the profile of the entering freshman class had been declining for several years, with the mean SAT score falling from 1151 in 1995, to 1143 in 1996, to 1134 last year.

This downward trend, he said, has produced "a mismatch between our curriculum and the interests of our faculty on the one hand, and the aptitudes and needs of our undergraduate students on the other."

While the Honors Program attracts top students, it is too small to have a significant effect on the overall profile of the student body, Goodman said.

Moreover, the effect of recent tuition increases has been that the tuition at UB is now not much lower than the discounted tuition at private universities, "making it very difficult to compete for the best students.

"We've seen some students we really ought to get, go to other schools," he pointed out.

Therefore, it was "crucial to the continued quality of our undergraduate program that we offer a significant number of attractive, merit-based scholarships," he said.

"There are few more important things we can invest in than the quality of the student body. I'm thrilled we have been able to do that, and that President Greiner has been willing to make this investment.

"These scholarships make it possible again for us to attract the best students in order to be the kind of institution we want to be," he said.

And once UB "creates the perception" that it is attracting excellent students, "we will attract more excellent students," he said, adding that this upward spiral in the quality of the student body will improve the quality of all the university's academic programs.

"Students learn from each other," Goodman pointed out. "A good student makes education better for all. If we improve the (overall) quality of students, all will get a better education. (With the new scholarship program) we're doing that."