The university has plans to improve its freshman-class portfolio over the next three years by increasing academic selectivity while maintaining its current enrollment and offering a slate of new programs designed to keep students at UB for their entire undergraduate careers.

Increasing selectivity ties directly to retention, Sean Sullivan, vice provost for academic information and planning, told members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at their May 2 meeting.

"If we enroll a higher-profile class-and if past persistence rates for that level of students hold-they're going to persist to graduation, just because they are more motivated to do so," Sullivan explained.

"Right now, we lose 16 percent of our freshmen before they become sophomores," he said-or roughly 475 students-noting the goal is to bring up the freshmen-to-sophomore retention rate to 90 percent. The way to do that, Sullivan said, is to attract the "high-end market share" of college students. According to SUNY selectivity standards-with Group 1 at the highest end of high-school achievement and Group 5 at the lowest-UB plans to increase the number of freshmen in groups 1 and 2 from 76 percent to 85 percent by 2004, while phasing out admission at the G4 and G5 levels by this fall. Targeted freshmen enrollment remains at roughly 3,000.

By increasing admissions selectivity, UB also hopes to bring up its four-year graduation rate from 28 percent to 35 percent by 2004, said Sullivan, who noted that UB's rate is one of the lowest in the SUNY system. The five-year graduation rate at UB is 50 percent, while the six-year graduation rate is 57 percent, a number Sullivan hopes will hit 66 percent by 2004.

In order to boost these figures, Sullivan said, UB is stepping up efforts to better engage prospective students. Toward that end, the university will increase the number of scholarships awarded to freshmen entering in fall 2001 in the top level of admissions criteria from 575 to 930-or nearly one-third of freshmen-with $1.2 million it received from SUNY. But whereas scholarships alone once impacted yield, that effect has "stalled," Sullivan said, and UB now is focusing on providing an overall academic experience "that really improves (students') perceptions of UB and improves what they feel they will get from UB."

Among the plans on the table:

• Create a student scholars program "that would provide an honors-like experience to all scholarship holders," including research opportunities and faculty- and peer-mentoring programs. Sullivan noted that 95 percent of honors students persist to graduation, of which 90 percent obtain their degree in four years.

• Develop competitive electronic recruitment techniques. A Web team is working on establishing an improved "communication stream" with prospective students. As well, Sullivan said, they are working to increase the number of transactions a new student can complete online.

• Decrease the time between students' application to UB and notification of admittance and financial awards

• Include a supplemental application form to better target students' interests. Sullivan said a pilot form will be used this summer during orientation and could be introduced in Fall 2002.

• Establish an alumni recruitment program

• Diversify the UB population by doubling out-of-state enrollment, as well as increasing enrollment within the state, particularly in the New York City metro area

In other business, Susan Hamlen, chair of the senate's Budget Priorities Committee and associate professor of accounting and law, presented a report on "The Budget Process at UB." The full report will be published in the Reporter in the fall.