Nicholls enrollment increased 3 percent for the Spring 2005 semester, which is approximately 208 students. This can be attributed to freshmen retention rates according to Renee Hicks, director of assessment and institutional research.”We believe the increasing tuition is attributed to a stronger freshman class and that stronger freshman class being retained,” Becky Durocher, director of admissions, said.
In order to get enrollment up, admissions started a program called Tele-counseling to get prospective students interested in Nicholls.
“Students come in and call people and tell high school students how great Nicholls is,” James Irwin, coordinator for recruitment communications, said. “Basically, they provide a one-on-one contact from student to student.”
Out of all the parishes in Louisiana, the parish with the most Nicholls students is Lafourche, with 1,690 graduate and undergraduate students attending Nicholls.
Currently, 197 undergraduate and graduate students from out-of-state attend Nicholls. The state with the largest number of students enrolled, other than Louisiana, is Texas with 56 students. The next largest is Mississippi with 28 students.
There are 105 graduate and undergraduate students from other countries attending Nicholls as well. The top three countries are Canada with 16 students, France with 15 and Japan with 13.
This semester the student population is 64 percent female and 36 percent male.
“The trend has normally been more heavily female,” Hicks said.
From the Spring 2004 semester to the Spring 2005 semester, enrollment changed by more than 200 freshmen. The freshman class went from having 2,105 students to having 2,308, causing a 9.6 percent increase. The sophomores went from having 1,310 to 1,320 students, causing a 0.8 percent increase. The juniors saw the largest change from 1,012 students to 1,122, making it a 10.9 percent increase. The senior class was the only class with a decrease going from 1,578 seniors to 1,527, causing a 3.2 percent decrease.
“We’ve seen an increase in graduation rates so we’ve seen less seniors,” Hicks said. “Which is a good thing.”
Nicholls will begin having selective admissions beginning in the fall of 2005. One of the new requirements for admission into Nicholls for first time freshmen is that students must have the TOPS core curriculum. Also, they must have an ACT composite score of at least 20, graduate within the top 50 percentile of their high school class or graduate with an overall grade point average of 2.0.
“Most likely the selective admissions will cause a decrease in enrollment, because not just anyone will be able to get in,” Ashleigh Rocker, freshman from Slidell, said. “Someone will have to have good grades in order to get in.”
In order for a transfer student to receive admittance into Nicholls, they must meet the freshmen admission requirements, be eligible to return to the previous school attended and must have completed at least 12 non-developmental hours.
“I think that it is good that they are changing their standard, but the students who want to come to Nicholls who do not meet the standards won’t be able to receive the education they want straight out of high school,” Lenier Fiffie, freshman from Edgard, said.
