In fall 2005, Nicholls plans to enforce a much more selective admissions policy than it has used in the past.Previously, Nicholls has implemented a mildly selective admissions policy, which stated that the student must have an ACT composite of 20, or a 2.25 grade point average, or graduate from top 50 percent of their high school class.

The policy that the Board of Regets has adopted provides different levels of admissions criteria for different institutions. At Nicholls, the new criteria is that the student must complete the Regents’ high school core curriculum (TOPS), have a high school grade point average of 2.0 or greater, an ACT composite score of 20 or a high school graduation rank top 50 percent of graduating class, and require no more than one remedial course.

“Any student needing two or more remedial courses will have to attend a community college or an open-admissions institution,” Caroll Falcon, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said.

Current students at Nicholls do not entirely agree with the new admission requirements.

“College is already hard to get into,” Mickael Humphrey, psychology sophomore from New Orleans, said. “You don’t need anymore obstacles to hinder higher education in Louisiana.”

“I think everyone should be on a college level to get into college,” Jeremy Penix, freshman from Gonzales, said. “The only thing is a lot of people would like to get into small universities such as Nicholls because it’s somewhat of a safe place, and raising the standards would not allow a lot of people to attend school.”

Although the University will be strict to those who need more than one remedial course, there will be about 15 percent of students set aside as exceptions to the policy, with 10 of the 15 percent set aside for other races. The remaining five percent will be set aside for athletes, band students or any other special interest groups, Falcon said.

“Because of the fact that we will not admit any student who needs more than one developmental course, we will begin to offer a summer bridge program,” Falcon said. “The bridge program will be designed for a student who has satisfied the requirements, but needs more than one developmental course. They’ll be able to come in the summer time and get one of those courses out of the way.”

The Board of Regents divided every institution into different selective admissions policies. An example of the Selective I category is LSU, which is the most stringent category. Next there is the Selective II category, which consists of schools like ULL and LA Tech. Nicholls is a part of Selective III category, which is the most lenient of all three categories, besides the Open Admissions Policy.

“We’ve been preparing for this since 2001,” Courtney Cassard, director of admissions, said. “That’s when the Board of Regents came out with this Master Plan, and since that time we’ve been working tirelessly with parents, high school guidance counselors, high school teachers and even students.”

This summer provides a loophole for first-time freshman who do not satisfy the requirements that will be effective in the fall.

“If a high school student graduates in May and needs two developmental courses, he or she can still come to Nicholls if he or she registered before the fall,” Falcon said.

The University has taken positive steps in recruiting strong, well-prepared students. According to Falcon, the University has been granting scholarships to those who have good ACT scores, have followed the TOPS core, and students who the University knows will have a greater chance at success at a university.

Although Nicholls is only in the Selective III admissions category, which is moderately selective, there have been some people turned down by the University already.

“There are students who aren’t going to get in. We’ve already sent out rejection letters to students who are not going to be able to qualify for admissions,” Cassard said. “It is very restrictive.”

ACT scores have dramatically risen over the last five years. Last year there was a jump by half a point. That is almost unheard of, according to Cassard.

“Students are taking the right classes and preparing themselves more in high school,” Cassard said.

Nicholls is preparing to take a small hit with first time freshman in the fall. At first, there was an expected decline of 350 to 400 students. Now they are expecting a decline of only 150 students. Retention rates are rising, and as long as more students are retained at Nicholls, the need for more freshman will lower, Cassard said.

“A couple years ago we were losing a little more than half of our students in the freshman and sophomore level. Now we’re keeping about 68 percent of our freshman and sophomores,” Cassard said. “We’ve been making huge strides.” According to Cassard, the fact that Nicholls has raised the admission standards has not changed anything as far as the number of applications received. So far about 5 percent of the applicants have not met the new criteria.

“It’s important to get students to come to Nicholls,” Cassard said, “It’s more important to get students to stay and graduate.