Freshman class larger than expected

The registration numbers are in for the incoming freshman class. The numbers are currently higher than was expected by the admissions office.

"Originally we had a target number of 2,400 students. We actually have a higher yield percentage and a higher number of deposits," said Ingrid Hayes, director of Admissions.

Tech is not the only school experiencing inflated freshman numbers. "This is a national trend. Lots of schools are experiencing this. Many students are submitting multiple deposits and putting off the decision on which school they are going to," Hayes said.

Submitting multiple deposits allows students to wait longer before they make their final decision as to which college they will actually attend in the fall.

"It makes it more difficult to plan for upcoming fall semester," Hayes said.

While the numbers are currently inflated, the numbers will decrease as the summer progresses.

"We typically lose three to five percent of students during the summer who submitted a deposit. This is known as the summer melt," Hayes said.

While the summer melt is typical of every summer, according to Hayes, the admissions office does not know exactly how many they will lose during the summer months.

The admissions office is taking steps to keep the incoming freshmen numbers as updated as possible.

"We are staying in contact with prospective students so we can know as soon as possible if someone decides to go elsewhere," Hayes said.

The main reason to keep the numbers as updated as possible is to plan for summer events for freshmen.

"Students are pre-registered for orientation, so if a large number of students enrolled in the orientation are not coming to this school, we want to get them out of there so we can make room for students who are serious about coming to Tech," Hayes said.

The problem of double deposits have brought the admissions office to question the deposit amount.

"There is a possibility we will raise the deposit amount to deter prospective students from double depositing, but we want to wait and see if the trend continues. We don't want to make the deposit cost prohibitive and deter those who really want to go to Tech," Hayes said.

Double depositing is still a new phenomenon and admissions officials are waiting to determine what to do about it.

"We will be watching very closely to see what comes of it," Hayes said.

Not all freshmen will be beginning their Tech careers during the fall.

"250 freshmen are starting during the summer," Hayes said. "There will be a Freshmen Summer Session that starts June19th and will be completely separate from the other two summer sessions."

The diversity numbers of the incoming class have not changed much over the past few years.

"Currently, there are 2,699 incoming freshmen," Hayes said. "Forty-one percent of students are out of state, thirty-one percent of students are female, five percent of students are African American, five percent of students are Hispanic and five percent of students are International."

The most popular major of the incoming freshman class is undecided engineering.

"Beyond that, the top five majors are Mechanical Engineering, BioMedical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, and Computer Engineering," Hayes said.

According to Hayes, the two schools who had a significant increase are the College of Science, up forty-one percent from last year, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, up eighteen percent from last year, which is on top of last year's double digit percentage increase from the year before.

"Both schools took individual recruitment measures and specifically reached out to perspective students," Hayes said.

The increase of population of the two schools will not lead a growth of population on campus as a whole.

"The division of the pie changes," Hayes said. "The target number won't go up. There isn't room to increase the overall student population on campus."

The story is different when it comes to transfer students.

"We have more flexibility with transfer students," Hayes said.

According to Hayes, Tech will receive four hundred transfer students this year.

Another aspect of Tech is also causing the admission office to be concerned about the larger than predicted freshman class.

"Retention is also up," Hayes said. "If it comes to a point, the decision will have to be made at some administrative level. We don't want to diminish the quality of education students are receiving."

While the population on campus is growing, there is no consideration for creating more living space on campus.

"The Master Plan is looking at growth beyond the Atlanta campus," Hayes said. "Tech can grow without affecting the quality of life on the Atlanta campus."

According to Hayes, Tech does not set the limit for the number of students that it can allow on campus.

"The University system has set capacities for all schools," Hayes said. "We are just under our limit."

The application process will also be seeing some changes over the next couple years.

"We are adding a new feature to the enrollment application to Tech," Hayes said. "There will be optional short answer essays where the perspective students choose two of five possible essays if they are interested in the Honors Program or Presidential Scholarship."

According to Hayes, the essays will also provide the admissions office with additional information and be used as another evaluation tool.

"We are looking to see if the students had any research engagements in high school," Hayes said. "For those who did, we are trying to reach out to them and let them know they can continue their work here."