USF Sees Dramatic Increase in Applications
Admission becoming more competitive
So many students have applied for fall admission to USF that for the first time in the university’s history, it will limit its ’04 freshman class enrollment and use a waiting list for prospective students.
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Chat Sessions Useful in Recruitment
For the past year, USF’s office of admission has been using online chat rooms in student recruitment. Chat sessions allow students and parents interested in USF to talk to a variety of people from the university community including current USF students, faculty, admission counselors, and financial aid officers.
“Gathering everyone in the same room at the same time really boosts everyone’s confidence in answering people’s questions,” said Ron Toledo, Web systems director for academic services. “We are then able to decide who can best answer each question.”
Chat sessions appear to help allay students’ worries about everything from what to wear to class to how to balance a job with school. Junior Sarah Takahama, who has participated in several chat sessions, said talking online with the students and parents helps give them a feel for the USF community.
“A lot of the students we talk to online want answers to all those seemingly life-threatening questions they have about college,” Takahama said. “Even though talking via a computer screen seems impersonal, I think the chat sessions allow us to connect with them on a one-on-one level.”
Admissions administrators decided to try the chat rooms after hearing the idea was working at other colleges. They also thought it would be practical to use a medium familiar to teenagers. The university purchased the chat session software in 2002 from provider Chat University and started the sessions last spring.
Tom Matos, director of admission, said that the chat rooms are helpful because they can target specific groups with specific interests. For example, the majority of the spring semester chats are for admitted students whereas fall semester sessions are geared toward high school juniors and seniors. Adult students interested in the College of Professional Studies can participate in separate sessions to discuss subjects important to them.
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As of mid-February, two weeks after the preferred application deadline of Feb. 1, USF had received 5,168 applications for 950 spots in the fall freshman class. That is a 21 percent increase over last year and an approximately 50 percent increase over two years ago. Transfer applicants this year increased by about 33 percent.
“We will cap our freshman class at 950 students this year,” said Tom Matos, director of admission. “In the last four years, the class has grown by (a total of) 190 students.”
The growth in applications is seen in all categories of students—male and female, California and non-California residents, and all ethnic groups. The quality of students, as measured by grade point averages and SAT scores, also is increasing. “Increasing not just the quantity but the quality of applicants is a challenge and we’ve been able to do that,” Matos said.
“As USF grows, for the first time we are in the position of wait-listing students, which we haven’t done before,” he said. “We will put 300-400 students on a wait list and deny admission to some students who might have been admitted a few years ago.”
Matos said USF does not have the facilities to support a larger class and will not sacrifice quality in the interests of admitting more students.
“We guarantee housing for all incoming freshmen and we also let sophomores know that housing will be available to them,” he said. “We are mindful of class loads for faculty and of class size. We can’t just keep admitting students because there is a chance we would end up over-enrolled.”
Matos attributes the increase in part to better recruiting efforts.
“We’ve been getting out there more, creating a higher profile for USF, and we’ve been able to contact students sooner, often as sophomores in high school,” Matos said. “We are also in touch with them more frequently and through varied means, such as email and chat rooms.”
BJ Johnson, dean of academic services, said the other factor is the quality of a USF education. “If USF didn’t have a good product, we wouldn’t be getting these applicants.”
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