Editor, The Tiger:

I was on campus last weekend for Homecoming and read the Homecoming issue of the Tiger. I wanted to comment on the tone of the article relating to College finances. A statement that caught my attention was the supposed shortfall in enrollment of ca. 50 students.

There was at least an implied criticism of the admissions program. As a longtime member of the admissions committee, and a faculty member deeply concerned with the admissions process and the quality of the student body, I want to make a few comments from my personal perspective. All the numbers that I will quote are approximate because I am on sabbatical leave and don’t have access to my records.

Each year the College’s administration — not the admissions committee — establishes a target for the size of the freshman class to be recruited. The College’s budget is then developed based in part on that number.

Two years ago the target was 315 freshmen, which I (and perhaps the committee) considered a reach. Because of a lot of hard work by the admissions staff, who are superb professionals by the way, that goal was successfully reached.

Last year the target was set at 350, a more than 10% higher number, and as I recall the committee was unanimous in considering that an unrealistic goal. As you know the freshman class matriculated at 295, which really was a shortfall of 55 from the target of 350. In my opinion this resulted from a combination of the unrealistic original target and the economic meltdown.

However, you should note that the shortfall would have been 20 based on the previous year’s difficult but reached target. In my opinion it is a mistake to set a target arbitrarily based on budget-balancing concerns and without consideration of historical trends. Had the budget been formulated based in part on a realistic admissions target, a lot of the current budgetary problems would have been avoided. I have had this argument with the College’s administration for a number of years, and no one has yet told me how the admissions target is set whether by rational or irrational means.

My own suggestion has been to do what we do with extracting funds from the endowment: use a three-year rolling average of the actually matriculated freshmen classes. This approach might not be particularly rational, but it would tend to damp out violent and arbitrary 10% changes from year to year. It might also produce a more realistic budget.

With best regards,
Dr. Herb Sipe

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