Present:
Bob Szafran, Chair
DawnElla Rust
Doyle Alexander
Lauren Scharff
Roger Bilow
Pat Spence
Florence Elliot-Howard
Marty Turnage
Piero Fenci
Absent:Mike Legg
I. Old Business
A. Bob Szafran announced that Dr. Ashleyliked the web site and it will fulfill the needs for this project.The site was created to enable the University community access toview minutes and other information from the committee meetings. Thecommittee is awaiting the electronic version of the consultant'sreport. Lauren Scharff noted that she will inform the Faculty Senateabout our committee's work at its next meeting.
II. New Business
A. RogerBilow reviewed briefly SFA admission requirements that Nancy Dunncovered at the last meeting.
B. Healso introduced a packet of information to the committee, which gavean overview of ACT, SAT, Class rank and other statistical datarecorded through the Office of Admissions as well as recommendedrequirements for admissions at other state institutions.
C. Rogerexplained several House Bills. HS Bill 588 is a uniform admission'sBill passed in 1997. This Bill states that all students applying to aTexas State public institution and are in the top 10 percent of theirclass must be accepted. He conveyed that some universities haveselection criteria up to 18 items they may use as a guide in theadmission process. Additionally, some institutions favor therecommendation that students ranking in the top quarter of theirclass be admitted.
D. Rogeralso explained that current SFA admissions requirements exceed the 10percent automatic admission. SFA also offers two other admissionprograms. These are the Summer Provisional Program and the AcademicOpportunity Program (AOP). Ethnicity or gender is not used indetermining admission.
E. Rogerbriefly summarized the inception of the Texas State CommonApplication. Legislation was passed that State public institutions berequired to use a CommonApplication for admission purposes.Two applications were published:afreshman application andatransfer application. Currently,regional institutions may use their university application as long asthey also accept the common application. The Common Application canbe filled out over the web. TheSFASUapplication is also available on theweb.
F. PieroFenci inquired about specific colleges using a "weight system" todetermine eligibility for admission. A discussion followed regardingthe NCAA Clearinghouse.
G. Rogerintroduced several handouts dealing with statistics gathered throughthe Office of Admissions on new students, freshmen and transfer. Itwas decided that the committee would review these handoutsindividually and discuss them further at next week's meeting.(Stats. onnew students 1998)
H. Rogerreported that the schools in direct competition with SFA were Texas A& M, UT Austin, Southwest Texas, University of North Texas, SamHouston, University of Houston, Baylor University and Texas Tech. Outof every 5 students choosing between SFA and Sam Houston, we get 3.6.Sam Houston gets the rest. Anadmissionrequirements summary of the SFASUrequirements for admissions and those of other state schools isavailable on the web.
I. Thecommittee was informed about the Phon-a-thon project, initiated bytheOffice of Admissions, which contacts new admitted students for thefall semester. This marketing strategy has been quite successful inthe past. It's an excellent way to keep in contact with prospectivestudents.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30a.m.
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