Nicholls finds statistics, such as enrollment numbers, demographics and average American College Testing (ACT) scores, on the fourteenth class day of each semester.

Statistics are drawn to show numbers dealing with students’ education, total number of students attending Nicholls, number of students in each classification, college and department, number of students with Taylor Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS), average ACT scores and details about gender, ethnicity, age and residency.

Executive Director of the Office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness Renee Hicks said, “The fourteenth day is what Nicholls uses at the federal and state level to establish the official numbers of the school.”

Any time the school needs to submit any numbers to anyone, the administration uses the official fourteenth day statistics.

The total enrollment for the 2014 fall semester is finalized at 6,298 students, which is less than last year’s 6,540. In other words, enrollment is down 3.7 percent from last year.

“We expected that because the incoming freshmen class is 1,202, and last year we awarded 1,364 degrees. So we knew to expect less people,” Hicks said. “We did better than we had anticipated.”
The budget of students made for fall 2014 was 6,197. Nicholls ended up with close to 100 more students than expected.

Of all students, 1,202 are freshmen, 1,130 are sophomores, 986 are juniors and 1,601 are seniors.

Of the 1,202 incoming freshmen, 752, or 62 percent of students, hold TOPS. Last year, 62.4 percent of the incoming freshmen had TOPS.

Hicks said, “We actually have five graduate students who have TOPS. They are finishing up their TOPS award in graduate school because they worked quickly and still have some of their eight awarded semesters left.”

There are 603 students at Nicholls who are graduate students and 5,695 who are undergraduate students.

The average ACT score among the freshmen is 21.81, which is up from last year’s 21.75. Louisiana’s total ACT average is 19.2, but because the amount of tests being given is higher, the score itself is lower, making Nicholls average higher than the state average.

“It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s quite substantial,” Hicks said.

The parishes that most students come from are Lafourche Parish and Terrebonne Parish. This year, 1,540 of students are from Lafourche Parish, and 1,432 students are from Terrebonne Parish.
This semester, the fourteenth class day was Friday, Sept. 5. The statistics were released on Monday, Sept. 8.

Hicks said that Nicholls has been seeing record-breaking graduations for the last three years.

“The students who are admitted on higher standards are getting out quicker,” Hicks said.

Next year, they expect the number of students to stabilize and the graduation rate to go back to normal. Because the graduation rates have been so high, there were many more students going through Nicholls than expected.

“I think this year is our last year with big graduation numbers. Hopefully next year the number of students will stabilize enrollment,” Hicks said.