UB posts highest enrollment in 6 years
University exceeds undergrad target by 4 percent, narrowly misses grad projection

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

The university has posted its highest enrollment in almost six years, with nearly 25,000 students enrolled for the Fall semester, according to UB's official enrollment-status report.

UB exceeded its enrollment targets at the undergraduate level by about 4 percent, while narrowly missing the graduate target.

Based on an enrollment "snapshot" taken on Sept. 15, the actual headcount at UB for Fall 2000 totals 24,830, 537 students over the 24,293-student target set by SUNY and 573 more students than Fall 1999.

The number of full-time freshmen enrolled is 3,059, 59 over the SUNY target; the number of new, full-time graduate students is 2,044, 34 under target.

Sean Sullivan, vice provost for enrollment management, noted that after reaching a low point in enrollment in 1996, 1997 and 1998, UB started to turn things around last fall, when the university broke the 24,000-student mark. "We started to come out of that (decline) last year and really are progressing toward that 25,000-student goal aggressively," he said.

The fall enrollment status report shows growth in the number of full-time transfer students, from 1,365 last year to 1,501 in 2000-an 11 percent increase-and in the number of continuing/returning students, from 9,569 in fall 1999 to 10,052 this fall, an increase of about 5 percent. The report does, however, indicate a decline in the number of part-time undergraduates, from 2,129 in fall 1999 to 2,071 this fall. The decline in part-time students are part of what Sullivan called "a continuing trend."

But all in all, UB's undergraduate enrollments "are very healthy and continue to grow," he said.

Moreover, the quality of the entering freshman class has improved substantially.

"This class is significantly a better class than last year and than the last several years," Sullivan said.

He pointed out that the enrolled high-school average this fall is 90, compared to 89 last fall. The mean composite SAT score of this year's class of 1150 (565 verbal, 586 math) is an improvement over last year's class composite of 1137 (557 verbal, 580 math). The last time the freshman class had a higher SAT composite was in 1995, when only about 2,500 students were admitted, he said.

"We're finding the yield percentage at the highest end of the applicant pool is improving," he said, noting it's quite an accomplishment with a much larger class this year to have students who are as good or better than those from the smaller 1995 freshman class.

Stressing that UB's increasing enrollment "is not just a one-year phenomenon," Sullivan attributed the growth-and higher profile of the freshman class-to a combination of factors.

UB has made a number of investments in the recruitment infrastructure, as well as initiated a "much more aggressive" direct-mail campaign. The consultancy with Noel-Levitz has provided many suggestions from the firm on improving recruitment, including an automated system to better manage communication with students "from the point of inquiry all the way to the point of enrollment."

The revenue incentives built into the budget model-in which tuition revenues stay on the campus- "have had an impact on school performance," he says.

In addition, a cumulative investment of $3.5 million in honors scholarships "is paying off in a big way" in increasing the yield of higher-quality students, as well as improving retention.

Sullivan credited faculty and staff with "working harder at recruiting better students, especially the Office of Admissions and the advisement staffs, and lauded the efforts of Nicolas Goodman, former vice provost for undergraduate education.

Although UB did not make its enrollment target at the graduate level, the numbers are up significantly from last fall, Sullivan said.

The headcount for graduate/professional students totals 8,147, short of the target of 8,318 but higher than the Fall 1999 headcount of 7,998.

Sullivan pointed out that SUNY had increased the graduate target 5 percent-from 8,000 to 8,318-from Fall 1999 to Fall 2000.

He noted that Provost Elizabeth Capaldi is working with the deans to increase enrollment at the master's-program level. "We believe there's a market out there and we can tap into it," he said.

As for individual professional programs, he said the School of Dental Medicine has maintained a "fixed class size" for the entering class; the Law School class has increased slightly, reflecting a decision by the school to "grow that class slightly," and the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences class is six students above its target of 135.

Sullivan added that the entering class in the School of Pharmacy has increased dramatically to more than 160, reflecting the phasing out of the bachelor's program in favor of a new, entry-level doctoral program. The effort is in line with a directive from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy approving the six-year Pharm.D., or doctorate of pharmacy, as the field's only professional degree.