Fall enrollment ndsu

[GCWaters]

Hhmm ... lets see. 2024 - 14 = 2010

So if I am reading this correctly, we just beat the old earmarks of the Chapman era, but with competitive funding instead of pork. I would say that's pretty damn good

In response to your previous comment, so far the fall 25 cohort suggests that we are indeed turning it around, and with only modest growth in on-line programs

Yes--the Chapman years saw a lot of growth in a lot of research areas, but federal funding was always much lower than it should have been, and much of it was earmarks and not competitive . With Fitzgerald in the VPRC office, things are really moving and in a good way.

With regard to online, I don't think so much about programs as classes. In their heyday, when Lisa Nordick ran DCE and before Bresciani and Ingram shut her down, NDSU's strength was in offering a fairly large variety of online courses that students could take when they had a scheduling conflict--with another class, with work, etc. I think NDSU has to, first, make sure that's solid--reliable online offerings that help students with scheduling. Then add a limited number of targeted fully online programs. We have a few, but they're hidden--virtually no one knows about them. That's going to be our wheelhouse, I think, not hordes of students filling numerous online programs. That means our numbers will likely continue to be below UND's, but I think that's ok.

[kab1one]

FWIW my high school senior and his classmates went to NDSU for a college fair today. I will ask who all was there. But thinking good portion of his class went. Shanley high, so local. He doesn't get much from UND, have seen a few things from Moorhead. More regional private schools send him literature.

[GRAFTONBISON]

Disturbing trend we've noticed the last couple months. Our kids are juniors in high school so they are getting information packets from universities. They get stuff from UND at least once a week, sometimes more. They have gotten multiple items from a wide range of of universities from all over...even couple Ivy league schools. They have gotten 1 thing from NDSU. One. Both kids still have NDSU as their #1 pick so far, but that interest is starting to wane for them. Even my wife and I who want nothing to do with UND admit that UND is killing it as far as getting their name out there, and NDSU is doing next to nothing. Really looks like one university knows what they are doing and one can't get out of its own way. Really sad.

We noticed the same exact thing with our twins this past year. We were shocked at the difference between the amount of mailings we received from many other schools compared to NDSU. If it wasn't for our ties to NDSU, I don't think either of our boys would have looked into NDSU much.

[NDSU_grad]

This fall looks pretty good to me--tons of students in the union, on the grounds, etc. With the two LLC's and the new Cater hall, we have plenty of really good dorm space for students. We could start looking at repurposing some of the older ones that don't have the amenities students want--could be good research space, especially with VPRC's push to expand funded research in the social/behavioral sciences and the humanities...

And that's big news....to quote:

"Researchers broke a 14 year-old record by earning $142.5M in external funding awards in FY24. Besides breaking that previous all-time high, they also surpassed FY23's awards total of $80.9M by 76%!
�� All NDSU colleges experienced growth in awards received.
�� The largest component of FY24 awards came from federal sources at $114.5 million or 79% of the total of all funding."

My daughter enrolled as freshman this fall. Drug her feet for housing so ended up in Weible. When we moved her in it sure looked like Weible and Reed-Johnson were full. Pavek is being renovated right now so more room will open up when that’s done. Weible definitely is nicer than it was 30 years ago. I assume all the forms are getting a facelift.

[TransAmBison]

We noticed the same exact thing with our twins this past year. We were shocked at the difference between the amount of mailings we received from many other schools compared to NDSU. If it wasn't for our ties to NDSU, I don't think either of our boys would have looked into NDSU much.

Well that sucks. From the previous comments I was hoping they were limiting mailings only to the Fargo/Moorhead/West Fargo area, and sending to everyone else. Now I'm back to my original idea that they are just falling short overall.

[LefseBison]

Where is Sam Hill are the common sense people at NDSU Recruiting? You need to meet people where they are rather than expect potential students to seek out. It is so sad and Lurker, lay off, I just care. I don't know why but shouldn't we care about these wasted opportunities? If I were 18 again, and I received many mailings from a given university and one from NDSU, that MAY tip the scales in the other university's favor.

[LefseBison]

Hey lefse lady ... what exactly is "the inevitable"? NDSU made some changes and turned it around. If you can't admit that then your just a troll, like the rest of the lil' old ladies on here

NDSU would have 18000 now if 1/3 of the enrollment was 100 % virtual

On the flip side, if 1/3 of your enrollment was on-line only, you'd be spamming the shit out of local kids too

Let's hear you talk some sports for a change, ok?

I probably don't have much time left on earth, relatively speaking, and I am going to use those years to speak up.

[Bison"FANatic"]

NDSU does a horrible job of recruiting compared to other colleges. We just went through it and NDSU was very sub par (makes me puke a little but UND kicked them). My daughter is crazy organized with great grades (over 4.0) and very active so it was not a not qualified thing. She actually had a power point presentation for us of pros cons for colleges around the country. The best for contact with her was probably Arizona state. Literature, emails, letters, calls you name it they did it. Didn't end up going there though, went to the college that had a great recruiting event for her major, a whole Saturday of meeting with professors, them showing and talking about the different classes and equipment and tracks of classes offered. Multiple possible employers that were not just local but national had booths and talked about career options. Campus tours were very informative and not just fluff of, there is this building there is that building blah blah blah. She told them her goals and they talked with her and sold themselves on how they can get her there. Before my wife and daughter flew home she said this is where I want to go.


Compared that to a friend who's kid (crazy smart off the charts grades), parent went to NDSU, lots of connections to NDSU, was leaning towards going there. Went to a recruitment event and it was very impersonal. Hadn't decided what part of engineering field he wanted to go into so was looking for information. NDSU had a few tables set up for different engineering tracks, but they had to work to barely understand the people manning the tables and it was not informative or helpful. Went on tour of campus and it was a here is this building here is that building walk. Didn't break them up into areas of interest and the kid and family were never even shown anything remotely close to engineering related. They did show them a dorm, yep they took them to Weible of all the dorms on campus you show off Weible, cmon man. The kid does not attend NDSU.

[Gully]

Well this is all discouraging to read. I guess a positive note is that it wouldn't take much to improve .

[WhoRepsTheLurker]

Based on the comments here, I hit the pavement and pinged a few people. What I gather is that based on analytics, NDSU does very little physical mailing anymore. It’s all targeted on-line marketing. So, I encourage you to call/email/write the marketing department with your stories and concerns. My understanding is they just hired a new director, so this would be a good time to make yourselves heard, loud and clear

Sorry, I don’t mean to be an asshole, but Waters just gave us something incredibly positive to focus on. Remarkable and differentiating, really. No need to go negative all the time, imo, but maybe that's just me