EDITORIAL: Smaller freshman class presents opportunities for academic improvement
In a smart display of responsibility, Central Michigan University is planning to admit 300 to 400 fewer students than last year, despite receiving more applications than ever. The time is now to raise CMU's academic profile.
As of Feb. 8, CMU had received 16,770 applications from high school seniors, compared to 16,481 at the same point last year, as reported last week.
University President George Ross and Director of Admissions Betty Wagner said they want to admit 3,750 to 3,850 freshman students, compared to last year’s record-breaking 4,173-student freshman class.
There’s no way around it — last year’s freshman class was just too big. Sure, it made financial sense to get that much tuition money coming in, but there was not enough space on campus to house everybody.
There was no sense of exclusivity. To keep people interested in attending a school, that school has to have a sense of exclusivity — that it means something to be accepted there.
The numbers being discussed for this year’s class are far more reasonable and in line with past years', and what campus housing is able to handle.
It is key to note that demand to attend CMU has never been higher. This puts CMU in a prime position to make strides in its academic programs and the reputation of those programs.
The university has the opportunity to be more exclusive with its admissions policies. No one is expecting it to suddenly have Ivy League admission standards, but this is their opportunity to hold their incoming students to greater academic expectations.
Likewise, this demand puts CMU in prime position to improve its academic programs, along with the quality of accepted students. A 3,850-student class is still a considerable amount of tuition income, which should be filtered into the improvement of curriculum and the treatment of teachers. This would be easily coupled with the university’s current academic prioritization project.
The reason for doing this is simple. If CMU takes the opportunity right now to attack academic improvement from both sides — better education and better students — the university could see staggering results.
More simply, now is the time to raise our academic profile and the national reputation of CMU as an educational institution. If the university does that, admissions, and demand to come here, will remain high, and could continue to grow.
