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| UAHuntsville incoming freshmen college entrance scores climb, housing is "pleasantly" crowded A near perfect mix of instruction, testing and motivation has resulted in higher collegiate scores for incoming freshmen students at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAHuntsville).
"The higher scores are the result of a combination of factors," explained Rick Barth, assistant vice president of Enrollment Services at UAHuntsville. "We are in the second year of the process of slightly increasing the first-year admission standards each year for five years. We also have to give credit to our high schools, their teachers, and their counselors for consistently striving to improve the college readiness level of their students. Also, with our strong academic reputation, the university tends to attract the best students."
Barth said, for fall 2009, UAHuntsville's admitted student average GPA is 3.56, and the average ACT is 25.3. While the final averages for enrolled students will not be accurately averaged until the fall semester begins, it does indicate the average ACT score continues to approach 25 and the incoming average GPA continues to approach 3.5. He noted, too, that an increase had been observed across all scores, including mathematics and science.
Another predictor of college attendance is high school grades.
"Most research in this area does indicate that a student's GPA is the single strongest predictor of first-year academic success," Barth said. "However, the combination of the GPA with the ACT or SAT score is a stronger predictor of first-year success than any individual variable."
At this point, Barth said, it is too early to tell how many students are scheduled to attend UAHuntsville this fall because students are admitted to the university up to the first day of classes. "Freshmen orientation attendance has been strong for our first couple of sessions and we are expecting the next two sessions to be full. Our transfer applications have been behind where we were at this time last year and we are seeing more transfer students planning on staying at the community college to finish their two-year degree before transferring to UAHuntsville."
The flip side of increasing the number of first year students is the shrinkage of the overall student population at the university. "The current economic condition has definitely had an impact on our recruitment," Barth said. "We are seeing fewer families that wish to take on the expense of out-of-state tuition during such uncertain times. This has created a very competitive market for four-year institutions."
Barth said UAHuntsville is in step with national projections and has established several goals in increasing overall enrollment, including enrollment of underrepresented students and in increasing the academic profile of the incoming first-year students. "These goals are divided over a five-year period that began this past fall and will continue until fall of 2013. We will re-visit these goals every fall semester to measure progress and re-direct recruitment efforts where necessary."
The university has a fairly even split between men and women with slightly more men, Barth said. "If you review the past five years the percentage of men has ranged from 50 percent to 53 percent this past fall. And for women, it has ranged from 47 percent this past fall to 50 percent in fall of 2004."
He said, while the largest percentage of students in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors are men, UAHuntsville has a significant number of women majoring and graduating in these majors. "We are definitely focused on recruiting more women into the STEM programs of study."
Barth's team has made a number of other changes including implementing an e-recruitment package, hiring satellite recruiters that are being placed in Memphis and Atlanta areas. "We are updating our web presence and have developed our use of digital media through twitter and Facebook.
"In records and registration we are implementing an electronic degree audit program so students and advisors can better monitor students' progress to degree" he explained further. "Additionally, Financial Aid and IT are working together on developing an online scholarship application that will allow students to apply for scholarships online and allow scholarship committees to view applicants through the web."
As UAHuntsville welcomes a record number of new freshmen for the fall semester, the university is experiencing growing pains: specifically, a crowded house.
"Fortunately we are pleasantly crowded," said John Maxon, associate vice president for University Housing. "Our occupancy in the Central Campus Residence Hall was in the 93 percent range last year, with all of our other housing areas experiencing occupancy in the high 90 percent range, making our total occupancy in housing around 96 to 97 percent.
UAHuntsville, like many universities, are requiring freshmen to live on campus for at least the first year. "This is the second year of the freshman on-campus initiative (all those outside of 30 miles from the campus)," said Maxon. "It was a very smooth transition as we had few issues and concerns from students or parents. We do provide an opportunity for students to seek an exemption to the policy. The form is then reviewed by a committee and a determination is made to grant the exemption or not."
Because housing is one of the main infrastructure needs on campus, the university is addressing the shortage by building a new residence facility.
"The new residence hall (not yet named) will be located to the south of the new Intermodal facility across the street from Southeast Campus Housing," Maxon said. The University Housing Office will be located in the new facility, as well as a large amount of common-living area space on the lower level. The new complex will have 400 beds and is scheduled for occupancy at the beginning of the 2010 fall semester.
Maxon said new residence hall amenities include a recreation and game room, multi-purpose class room, a large group study space and two smaller study areas. "Each living floor will have two common area kitchens, and study rooms, and suites will have, in lieu of a large dining room table and chairs, a built-in bar and stools for eating and congregating. Bedrooms will be approximately the same size as the North Campus Residence Hall rooms, however these bedrooms will have built-in closets versus the traditional wardrobe closets that are found in all of our other traditional housing areas."
Students will have the opportunity to select furniture for the facility this fall.
Additionally, Maxon noted other on-going achievements occurring in University Housing:
- Housing residents have and continue to maintain, on average, a higher GPA than those students that reside off-campus
- Housing will continue to work with Enrollment Services, The Dean of Students Office and the Provost's Office to improve upon our First Year Experience Program, and develop and implement a Second Year Experience program, all intended to assist students to succeed during their time here at UAHuntsville
- Housing intends to initiate and develop several theme floors within the next one to three years. Currently the only theme floor in existence is the Honors Floor located on the fourth floor of Frank Franz Hall
- UAHuntsville housing has consistently retained our residents at an average of 65 - 70 percent, considerably higher than the national average of 58 percent.
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