The Office of Admission has had to find more storage space for applications. •
Pictured, from left, are Chris Parrish, Kandy Tucker and Veselina Vracheva.
THE
Freshman Applications Are Up 62.6 Percent
You can't blame the admission counselors and
application processors if they appear a bit bleary-eyed these
days. After all, they've been working extra hours trying
to keep up with a 62.6 percent increase in the number of
applications for undergraduate admission.
As of Jan. 14, applications for WCU’s fall freshman
class were up by 2,061 compared to the same week last
year - from 3,291 to 5,352. In fact, just two weeks into
the month, Western had already exceeded the total number
of applications received for fall of 2007, when 4,792
first-year students sought admission to WCU.
"As retired vice provost
"I can tell you without hesitation that a
one-year 62 percent increase in applications
for admission is phenomenal."
— George Dixon
UNC General Administration Consultant
for enrollment and director
of admissions emeritus at
N.C.. State with over 35
years of experience in the
admissions profession, 1 can
tell you without hesitation
that a one-year 62 percent
increase in applications for admission is phenomenal,”
said George Dixon, who also serves as senior consultant
with the National College
Access Partnership for the
University of North Carolina
General Administration.
In addition to having
a larger pool of prospective
freshmen, applications
from students seeking to transfer to Western from other
educational institutions in the fall also are up by more
than 25 percent (from 306 to 383), and applications for
freshmen who sought enrollment this spring semester were
up 39.3 percent (from 135 to 188).
WCU officials attribute the dramatic surge in
applications to a variety of factors, including the adoption
of a more precise system of student recruitment that helps
identify prospective students who are more likely to be
interested in attending Western.
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"Instead of a traditional carpet-bombing approach in
which we contacted every prospective student who took
the SAT, we have fine-tuned die process and are using
a more targeted approach," said Alan Kines, director of
undergraduate admission. “This nationally recognized
best-practices method allows us to refine our search process
through a computerized data-mining process that identifies
students who will be a better fit for us.”
The system examines students’ responses to questions
about preference for a public or private university, desire to
remain in state, willingness to travel more than three hours
from home, educational attainment
of parents and similar information
collected by die College Board when
students take the SAT.
By helping Western find
prospective students who are more
likely to apply for enrollment, the new
approach also is expected to play a role
in improving die university’s retention rate. “Students who
are identified as being a better fit for Western will be more
likely to stay here, to succeed, and to graduate,” Kines said.
Although this approach to student recruitment is
widely used by colleges and universities in other areas of
the country, Western is one of only a handful in the
Southeast to adopt the method, said Dixon.
“From my experience, using forecasting models in
recruitment is, indeed, an emerging best-practices model
in admissions and enrollment management," he said.
"While using student demographic information to look at
admissions and yield probabilities isn’t brand new, it hasn’t
been widely used until the past few years, and then mostly
by smaller private schools.”
Also playing a role in the increase in applications,
university officials said, is the addition of several new
programs that have proven popular with prospective
students, and an increase in Western's visibility
and reputation.
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