Official enrollment for the fall 2006 semester is higher than expected but is still lower than last fall, Courtney Cassard, director of enrollment services, said. While enrollment on the 14th day of class, known as stat day, is 6,814 students, which is 72 students less than fall 2005 (excluding 645 transfer students displaced by Hurricane Katrina), that number is 364 students higher than the projected enrollment for this semester, which was 6,450 students, Cassard said.

She said one of their objectives was to convert students who were registered to students who are enrolled.

“We did a lot of work to drive that number up. Just in the month of August, the Admissions Office placed 4,557 phone calls, and that is in addition to the 15,000 or so calls that were incoming,” Cassard said.

“I’m pretty pleased with our new student enrollment. We have also had an increase in transfer students, which is what the master plan was designed to do,” Cassard said.

The selective admissions standards were designed to send under-prepared students to community colleges where they can get prepared then transfer to a four-year university, Cassard said. Its goal is to raise retention rates by starting with higher quality students, Cassard said.

“That is exactly what is happening,” she said. “We’re getting better prepared freshmen, an increased number of transfer students and the retention rate is going up.”

The average ACT score of first-time freshmen has gone up for the third year in a row. The average score of fall 2005 increased from 19.72 in fall 2004 to 20.51. This fall’s average score rose to 20.92, a 2 percent increase.

Cassard said the jump is “almost unheard of, and really exceptional.”

“It shows that the marketing efforts and the branding initiatives are working and we are getting the message to the students (whom) we want here,” Cassard said.

The number of high school valedictorians in the freshman class has also gone up 40 from last year to 48 this fall, a 20 percent increase.

In a press release dated Sept. 12, University President Stephen Hulbert said, 37 of the 40 valedictorians from last year are continuing at Nicholls this year.

This is not the only indication of quality students, however.

Cassard said the number and percentage of students in TOPS has also increased, with over half of this semester’s first-time freshmen in TOPS.