enrollment up?

Date: Apr 6, 2004

enrollment up?

Date: Apr 6, 2004

According to local reporters, we had a 4% increase in fall and a 3% increase in spring, and freshmen apply rate up about 4%, thus, we should expect a 24% increase in enrollment next year, the largest in history.

Is the error arithmetic ?

According to local reporters, only the nursing program is really in trouble now, and all the problems in the college of business and economic development, ed/psych, crimminal justice, liberal arts, etc, are just small potatos, which Mader has said do not exist.

USM has never been a more "well-oiled" machine. One would think our "reporters" would press Thames and Mader on how USM is so well oiled when evidence everywhere indicates the opposite.

Oh, yeah, the Mader report says we are "up."

Date: Apr 6, 2004

Are they talking about this coming fall or the last fall, because enrollment hasn't yet begun for this fall?

Date: Apr 6, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: query
" According to local reporters, only the nursing program is really in trouble now, and all the problems in the college of business and economic development, ed/psych, crimminal justice, liberal arts, etc, are just small potatos, which Mader has said do not exist. USM has never been a more "well-oiled" machine. One would think our "reporters" would press Thames and Mader on how USM is so well oiled when evidence everywhere indicates the opposite. Oh, yeah, the Mader report says we are "up.""

Am I the only one who thinks of "Baghdad Bob" when I hear what Lisa Mader says about almost anything? "No, there is no morale problem over here. Everyone is happy and supportive of Saddam."

Date: Apr 6, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: concerned
"Are they talking about this coming fall or the last fall, because enrollment hasn't yet begun for this fall?"

The problem is that they are reporting numbers way too early. And they are obfuscating (god, I love that word!) the real issue. They are reporting an increase in acceptances (traditionally defined as offers of admission to USM that students have accepted). But from the garbled reporting of Janet Braswell, she has used the term "acceptances" to mean USM accepting the students. I don't see how you call that news...that USM has decided to "accept" 222 more students??? Can't you just see that meeting:

SFT: We've gotta put some positive spin out there, and my new "cloak of invisibility" paint isn't ready for market yet. What do we have?

LSM: Let's send acceptance letters to 222 more students than we did last year, and then get Joe Paul to tell the media that USM acceptances are up 9%! If we send out 9% more acceptance letters next month, and the next, then we can say that acceptances are up 27% by the end of June!

SFT: Damn the Nursing School! I think we've got ourselves a winner!

Date: Apr 6, 2004

is freshmen enrollment up or freshmen applicants up?

Date: Apr 6, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: take it back
"is freshmen enrollment up or freshmen applicants up?"

From what I can tell from the American article, the answer is NEITHER. Only the number of students that USM has ACCEPTED (a number that they control COMPLETELY) is up. Spin City, indeed.

Date: Apr 6, 2004

I agree Truth - my daughter has been accepted at several universities for the fall, but she has not enrolled at any yet. And, if standards are lowered, it's easy to accept more students. I'd like to see the average ACT score of recent acceptees. Until tuition is paid and the students show up and they are there for a couple of weeks in the Fall (in this case 2004), I believe that the numbers are meaningless.

Date: Apr 6, 2004

I doesn't mean that much if enrollment really does go up. The population is growing in the area. Enrollment from local people would go up some regardless of what kind of shape the school was in. That doesn't mean the programs that actively recruit talented students from other places wouldn't still be suffering.

Date: Apr 6, 2004

This article looks like a desperate attempt by the administration to convince the community that the Thames fiasco has not hurt enrollment. They are trying to make our predictions of an enrollment drop seem untrue. They have to make USM look like a "well-oiled machine" right?

Well they forgot to remember that we actually know how to read through the lines and understand the difference between acceptance and actual enrollment numbers. The administration obviously doesn't realize that we really have gotten a good education from the quality faculty members that he has been running off.

I so sick of Mader's "spin" that the H'burg American reports as news.

Stop the insanity please!!

this is me --->

Date: Apr 7, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: bean
"This article looks like a desperate attempt by the administration to convince the community that the Thames fiasco has not hurt enrollment. They are trying to make our predictions of an enrollment drop seem untrue. They have to make USM look like a "well-oiled machine" right?"

Reporting numbers like this happens to be what I do for a living. My first reaction to the article was, "They must have lowered the standards for accepting applicants." A college can be down in applications for admission & still be up in the number of applicants accepted. That's a no-brainer, really.

But truth be told, the forces that are causing college enrollments to rise (e.g., a sucky job market) are far more powerful than the "turmoil" at USM. Enrollment next fall will probably be up again, unless something dramatic happens on the national scene. Students are going to go to college & I assure you that factors like tuition, distance to home & financial aid are far more important than who sits in the president's office.

The real question should be, "How much greater would USM's enrollment growth be if it were being run by administrators who had a clue?"