Issue date: 4/10/09 Section: News

As the amount of students applying to college surges nationally, colleges and universities have been under pressure to rethink their admissions policies and guidelines.

Stricter criteria, lottery systems and acceptance quotas are becoming more and more severe.

From the East Coast to the West Coast, schools like the University of New England and the University of California in Los Angeles, have been redefining their admissions policies. This is mostly caused by state and federal governments' dwindling assistance in hard economic times, according to a UCLA press release.

However, at Eastern, applicants, acceptances and enrollment have remained stable. The campus, despite decreases in state aid and reserves of granted aid, has also retained its ability to support its enrolled students, said Brenda Major, director of admissions.

"We will admit students as resources permit, on a rolling admission basis," she said.

Major is addressing President William Perry's goal to enroll approximately 12,000 students - the number that "resources permit." This goal has not yet been confronted by the harsh economic climate as both some East and West Coast schools have.

"Eastern is becoming more state assisted than state supported," Major said.

Eastern has stated in its admissions policy that it will only enroll as many students as it has the resources to support, she added.

"Every university admits more students than it will enroll," Major said.

The number of denials and acceptances vary only slightly over a five-year course from 2005 to 2009. From last year to this year, denials decreased by 200 students and acceptances decreased by only 89 students. Active enrollment of students has only increased by 104 freshmen from 2007 to 2008.

Major said Eastern has continued its holistic approach to admitting students undaunted by the rest of the nation's issues.

She said in Illinois, the problems the coasts face are not relevant.

"Illinois is the second highest exporter of college prepared students," she said. "We don't have a significant increase in interested students."

UCLA has considered making its application deadlines tighter and moving up the dates in order to downsize applicant pools.

Eastern, on the other hand, does not have a firm deadline, Major said.

"The last day to register for classes is the Friday of the first week of each semester," she said.

Students have the ability to be accepted until that point in each semester.

Eastern considers grades, essays, recommendations, ACT and SAT composite scores and "students' motivation to succeed."

Denials are present, but not frequent. Retention rates, rather, play more of a deciding factor.

The university only has about 35 percent of its accepted freshmen actually enroll.

"We are not trying to decrease the number of applicants," Major said.

"We are always looking for students who will thrive academically and personally in a challenging and supportive environment."


Krystal Moya can be reached at 581-7942 or at ksmoya@eiu.edu.

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