Admissions numbers dip, but rebound anticipated

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

fter receiving just under 21,000 applications, the most in a year for a decade, the Admissions Office is finding a smaller than expected number of incoming students has signed up for the fall.

     Assistant vice chancellor for Enrollment Services Joseph Marshall reported that the University accepted 11,700 applicants, anticipating approximately 31 percent would enroll. Last year's enrollment rate was 33 percent. So far, the enrollment yield has been about 30 percent, leaving the first-year class size about 100 shy of its 3,600 target.

     Marshall attributed the decrease in yield to heavy publicity of efforts to "Save UMass" in the months before accepted applicants needed to send a deposit to save a place in the fall class. Admissions officers reported that some families were concerned about students' ability to get the classes they needed to graduate, Marshall said.

     Marshall said the target size for this year's incoming class is smaller than last year's 4,200 students in order to avoid overcrowding in the residence halls. It also facilitates student access to classes, he said. One method Admissions used to keep the class size down was to accept half as many out-of-state students as last year, he said. Last year's enrollment spike was partially due to a larger than expected nonresident yield.

     Ruth Green, director of Freshman Admissions, said the improvement in academic strength in incoming students over the last half-dozen years has resulted in a higher retention rate as students who are better prepared for college are less likely to drop out. Because fewer students leave after their first or second year, fewer students can be admitted.

     "Last year's GPA was 3.4, compared to 2.8 five or six years ago," she said.
Admitting a smaller class this year may have allowed the campus to further increase its selectivity, she said. Green said it is too early to tell what the demographics of the incoming class will be but it appears the class will be as strong, if not stronger than last year's academically. Marshall indicated that diversity appears to be higher this year, as well.

     Media reports of the lower than expected yield in the 2002 incoming class have prompted calls from parents whose children didn't receive the financial aid they wanted from private schools and want to reconsider enrolling at UMass, according Green.
"I think we're going to trickle up over the summer," she said. "You like to have flexibility. You like to be able to accommodate families, particularly Massachusetts families, who ... have had a change of circumstances over the summer."

     Green said there is always a "summer melt" - a loss of some students who have made deposits to save spaces in the fall class - but "Kathy Ryan [senior associate director of Transfer Admissions] is looking at some of the younger transfers. I think we can round it out with some sophomore transfers."