Top of the class

The class of 2011 is IU’s smartest and most diverse incoming freshman group in the University’s history.\nThis year’s freshmen had better SAT scores, more students in the top 10 percent of their high school class and more minority students than any class before them, according to the enrollment figures released Wednesday.\n“This is the equivalent of IU football hitting a major bowl game, or IU basketball going to the Final Four,” said Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Roger Thompson. “When we get our SAT score above 1,150 that will be like winning the Rose Bowl.”\nThe average SAT score for this year’s freshmen is 1146, just four points shy of Thompson’s next goal. This represents a 25-point increase from last year’s freshmen, who set a record high with an average score of 1,121. The new freshmen were also ranked higher in their high school classes, with almost one-third ranked in the top 10 percent of their graduating class. The class of 2011 also features 70 National Merit Scholarship finalists, up from 62 last year and just 29 the year before.\nThe dramatic rise in average scores and rankings comes less than 18 months after the IU board of trustees announced they would be raising admissions standards starting in 2011.\n“A strange thing happens in higher education,” said Chancellor Ken Gros Louis. “When schools announce they are going to raise admissions standards, applications go up. I think the explanation is that good students like to go where other good students are.”\nThis year’s freshman class is also larger than expected. Thompson said IU was planning to enroll a significantly smaller freshman class than last year, but a higher percentage of accepted students enrolled than in previous years. Thompson and Gros Louis attributed the higher enrollment rate to IU’s growing appeal to out-of-state students.\n“When I first became chancellor in 1980, out-of-state was only 19 percent (of students),” Gros Louis said. “Most people understand that out-of-state students subsidize in-state students, because of the tuition difference. There was a time most in-state students felt they could always get into (IU) Bloomington if they wanted to, and now people are surprised that they’re being waitlisted.”\nNow, 41 percent of freshmen are from outside Indiana, an even higher number than Thompson expected.\n“We were expecting about 39 percent of our freshmen to be out-of-state,” he said, which would have been the same as last year’s freshmen.\nThough there are actually four fewer black students in this year’s freshman class than last year, the total number of minority and international students has surged to 18 percent.\nThompson said the admissions office has worked hard to recruit more international students, hiring an admissions counselor to travel abroad and recruit students from countries like India and Korea. Thompson has also worked to have IU featured in minority student guides, allowing IU to be one of the only schools providing information in both Spanish and English.