Drexel draws smaller freshmen class as enrollment overhaul continues

In the second year of overhauling its enrollment process, Drexel University will see its number of freshmen drop again this fall but officials say they anticipated the decline and are prepared.

As of this week, 2,518 freshmen have committed to attend Drexel in the fall, down by 400 students or nearly 14 percent from the 2,918 students who committed last year by the same time.

Randall C. Deike, senior vice president for enrollment management and student success, said the university budgeted for 2,300 freshmen, realizing that it is still in transition to a new enrollment process designed to attract fewer applicants but a group more serious about enrolling and likely to graduate.

"We expected that it would take more than a year or two," Deike said, "so we've been pretty conservative in our thinking."

The university made nearly 200 offers to students on its wait list this spring, and the average SAT score of admitted students this year fell by six or seven points, while the average GPA remained about the same, he said.

"Right now, I'm not overly concerned about that," Deike said. "These are students who are prepared to do the work."

The bumps, Deike said, can be expected given the university's significant changes in enrollment procedures at a time when many colleges are struggling to make their classes and are having to cut staff or programs.

"We know it's a volatile market, even if you're not making a significant change," he said. "We're not only turning the ship in a significant way, but we're doing it in an increasingly competitive environment."

For years, Drexel had attracted a large volume of applicants but enrolled very few of them. Its yield - the percentage of accepted students who enroll - had dropped to an abysmal 8 percent.

The university in January 2015 announced it would add a $50 application fee and eliminate its "VIP" fast application, which required neither an essay nor recommendations - an effort to attract students more serious about attending and better able to do the work.

Applications for fall 2015 were halved, and Drexel's yield rate rose to 13.7 percent last year, with an uptick in the quality of accepted students based on SAT scores and grade-point averages. The class was smaller than the year before by a few hundred students, and the university last June laid off several dozen employees in part to cope with less revenue, but also as part of a larger restructuring.

"There aren't any additional cuts planned this year," said Lori Doyle, senior vice president of university communications. "The reason we did that last year was to position ourselves for a smaller class."

The university's trustees approved a balanced budget for 2016-17, she said.

Even with the expected loss of some students over the summer, Drexel should end up with more than the 2,300 it projected, Deike said. The university is estimating a freshman class of 2,335 or 2,340 - down from 2,720 in 2015.

"I feel pretty good about 2,300 being the bottom," he said.

The university has no plans to try to grow the class to a certain size, he said. Before the change in the enrollment process, Drexel fielded a freshman class of over 3,000, but only two-thirds of its students graduated in six years.

The university admitted 75 percent of its applicants this year. About 12 percent of those admitted decided to enroll.

Deike said the university is encouraged by an increase in its retention rate from its first to third term. Nearly 95 percent of freshmen remained enrolled through the third term, more than two percentage points higher than the last five-year average, he said. That equates, he said, to 90 more freshmen staying enrolled than the year before.

"To have the retention rate increase like it did in one year, that's huge," he said. "That's a hard dial to turn, and I expect it to continue."

The university has increased advising services to students and started using an early warning system to identify those who are struggling, he said.

The full effect of the change in enrollment process will take at least five years to measure, Deike said.

"I'm very excited about where we are headed," he said. "It will take a few more years. The goal is really to put us in a better position, long-term, so that we're graduating more of our students."