Present:
Bob Szafran, Chair
DawnElla Rust
Doyle Alexander
Lauren Scharff
Roger Bilow
Pat Spence
Florence Elliot-Howard
Mike Legg
Piero Fenci
Absent:
Marty Turnage
A. Bob Szafran checked with Dr. Janelle Ashley, VicePresident for Academic Affairs regarding the status of theconsultant's report. The consultants are experiencing hardwareproblems, but as soon as we receive the electronic copy it will beplaced on a webpage.
B. Pat Spence indicated to the committee that the copy ofthe consultant's report, which she has in her possession, could beused by the Pine Log for reference in articles yet to be printed onthe consultant's findings.
A. Bob Szafran and Roger Bilow led a discussion regardingthe handouts made available at the last meeting. Specific to thisdiscussion was admission application fees. Changing currentprocedures by adding an application fee would most likely create adowntrend in students applying.
B. Roger reported the current SFA applicant count as wellas the number admitted to date. Trends remain the same as last year,and enrolled students will most likely be the same too.
C. Continuing from last week, the group discussed otherTexas State public universities and their policies and procedures inadmission requirements, admission criteria and review, test scoresand how this information is used for overall results.(admissionrequirements summary) Additionally, universities may use acombination of criteria to formulate and admit students through asliding grid (SAT or ACT scores and quartile) or by qualifying,reviewing and narrowing the student pool.
Also discussed was the possible influence of changing the requiredcourses for admission (e.g. requiring a certain number of English orMath courses rather than recommending a certain number of suchcourses).
D. Roger Bilow lead a discussion regarding criteria choicesTexas State public universities use to formulate admissionrequirements. Some of these included the use of ACT/SAT scores, classrank of a student and high school course recommendations. Rogerpointed out that a high school student taking a majority of APclasses would be better prepared for college-level courses than astudent taking the basic minimum class requirements. (Handouts weregiven which summarized SFA beginning freshmanACT scores andSAT scores for 1997 and 1998,high school ranks, andranks by race of beginning freshmen.)
E. Roger added that increasing the number of scholarships,grants and loans offered to prospective students and increasing fundstoward retention programs could increase the number of enrolledstudents. However, along with an aggressive initiative to increasethe number of enrolled students also means implementing changes inother university areas such as advising and student mentoringprograms, which may become quite costly. Some universities employnationally known consultants to assist in improving and implementingchanges to increase their enrollment numbers, which is very costly.
F. The committee discussed the role of transfer students inrelation to total admitted students and concluded that higherfreshmen admission requirements would not translate to highertransfer requirements.
G. Roger presented and explained handouts. These wereProjections of Texas High SchoolGraduates indicating public and private school estimatedgraduates from 1995 - 2012, and TotalEnrollment Forecast for Community andTechnical Colleges showingestimated enrollment numbers for area colleges from 1997 - 2015.
H. Roger reported to the committee the weekly count, fromthe Undergraduate Application Comparative Application Report derivedfrom the Office of Admission. The major focus on the report at thistime is new admitted freshmen.
I. It appears that students who were ranked in the top 10%of their class and are automatically accepted to all Texas Statepublic universities did not affect the enrollment at SFA. Rogerinformed the committee that a snapshot of the SFA overall ACT/SATscores shows that they continued to remain the same for the last 3years.
J. Roger explained two additional handouts: the 1998Profile Information of College-Bound Seniors and the 1998 ProspectiveApplicants for Admissions provided by The College Board. Thesereports also show how SFA ranks alongside its competitors. (Thesehandouts are from the paper and are not available in electronic form-- if you would like to have a copy, please contact one of thecommittee members.)
K. Home-schooled students are continuing to be a growingtrend. Roger reported that the SFA Office of Admissions has admittedbetween 6 - 8 home schooled students a semester. These studentapplications are examined on an individual basis for admission -- insome cases the students are required to take standardized tests inseveral subject areas.
L. Lastly, the committee was given a brief overview of thehandout summarizing the AdmissionsStandards Survey 1998 and the results. This survey wasdistributed last fall to each faculty member for their input.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30a.m.