it this time.
Where are

we going to get

the space

for expansion?

How big is

too big?’

Carolyn Elfland ’ 69
associate
vice chancellor

Student body: The plateau concern

One important difference this time is that UNC is firmly rooted among the top-ranked schools in the country. It has no higher priority than to stay there, and the world of higher education is watching a fairly small set of indices: quality of the student body, quality of the faculty and ability to keep them, student-teacher ratio, class size, research funding yield.

Prospective students are watching, too — particularly the student body quality — and on campus there’s a concern that UNC already has such saturation among the best N.C. high school students that the quality of incoming classes will plateau and drop as the University grows.

A consultant with the higher education research firm Art & Science Group last summer pointed the trustees to some numbers — 73 percent of the state’s students making 1300 or better on the SAT applied to Carolina, and 86 percent of those at 1400 or higher applied for fall 2007. He said that in his 30 years in the business he did not think the firm had seen numbers that high at any public or private school.

A&S concluded that in growing to 33,000 from 28,000 — the rough projection for 2017 — UNC would see declines in average SAT score (a 10-point drop is considered significant), in average number of advanced placement courses taken and in percentages of enrollees in the top 5 percent and top 10 percent of their graduating classes.

The firm surveyed students who inquired about applying to UNC, those who did apply and those who were accepted, and it focused its study primarily on the impact of growth on top N.C. students. Several of its findings are worth noting:

Among inquirers who choose not to apply, “too big” is the most likely reason.

They’re concerned about class size, access to faculty and personal attention.

Seventy percent of the schools these students preferred to UNC have fewer than 15,000 undergraduates. For 61 percent of the top N.C. students who apply to UNC, their first or second choice is a school outside the state.

There are misconceptions:

About half of inquirers think Carolina is bigger than it actually is.

Nearly one-third of them, and two-
fifths of those who applied, think UNC has

Enrollment History

Note: While the fall 2008 enrollment is included here, the 2007 figure is the one referenced in the reporting in this article; it is the one UNC administrators used when projections for the next decade were begun.

Year No. of students Growth

1795 ............... 41

1805 ............... 57.....39percent 1815 ............... 83.......... 45. 6 1825 ..............122............ 47 1835 .............. 104.........- 14. 7 1845 ..............156............ 50 1855 ..............324 .........107.7 1865 ..............128 .........- 60. 5 1875 ............... 68.........- 46. 9 1885 ..............204 ..........200 1895 ..............351............ 72 1905 ..............680 .......... 93. 7 1915 ............ 1,059 .......... 55. 7 1925 ............ 2,734 .........158.2 1935 ............ 3,052 .......... 11. 6 1945 ............ 2,480 .........- 18. 7 1955 ............ 6,575 .........165.1 1965 ........... 12,419 .......... 88. 9 1975 ........... 20,615............ 66 1985 ........... 22,021 ........... 6. 8 1995 ...........24,439 ...........0.6 1996 ...........24,141 .........-0.01 1997 ...........24,189 ..........0.01 1998 ...........24,238 ...........0.2 1999 ...........24,635 ........... 1. 6 2000 ...........24,872 ...........0.9 2001 ........... 25,464 ........... 2. 3 2002 ........... 26,028 ........... 2. 2 2003 ........... 26,359 ........... 1. 2 2004 ........... 26,878 ........... 1. 9 2005 ........... 27,276 ........... 1. 4 2006............ 27,717 ........... 1. 6 2007 ........... 28,136 ........... 1. 5 2008 ........... 28,567 ........... 1. 5