Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1918 [PAGE 426]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

420

EOARD OF T&UStEES

[July 17,

having an alumni list from five to ten thousand; and $100 a year for institutions having an alumni list under five thousand.

No action was taken on this matter.

ESTIMATE OF ATTENDANCE FOR 191M8

(25) An estimate of the probable attendance at the University for 1917-18. As this will be an item of interest a generation from now, as an indication of how accurately or inaccurately we could forecast events at the outbreak of the great war, I am submitting it for record. July 16, 1917 Dr. Edmund J. James, President

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

The following estimate as to what our enrollment is likely to be in the fall at Urbana is of course only a guess, but it takes into account everything in the way of indication that is available at this time, and we shall have little more to go on until the close of the registration days. (1) The Freshman Class. In the latter part of May I sent a returnpostal-card query to the superintendents and principals of all our accredited high schools as to the number of students they expected to send us in the fall and the number they thought they would have sent us if it had not been for the war The following figures summarize the returns from 176 of these high schools: Number expected to enter in September, 1917.... , 486 Number who would have entered (in the opinion of the highschool principals) if it had not been for the war. ............643 Number who came from these schools in September, 19-16 --.582 The number who might have been expected to come from these schools if the war had not occurred, as estimated by the high-school authorities, shows an increase of 61 over the 582 students who entered from these schools in 1916. This is almost exactly 10 percent, which would have been about normal. The number who will enter next fall in spite of the war, according to the same authorities, is smaller by 96 than the number who came from these schools last September. The percentage of decrease is 16.5. It is certainly an interesting coincidence that the number of permits to new students issued by the Registrar's Office up to the middle of July is smaller than the corresponding figure for last year by 16.6 percent—the estimates that would follow from these two entirely independent indications differing by only one-tenth of one percent. Assuming, then, that the estimate of the high-school principals and superintendents is correct and that the same percentage will hold for other schools, and allowing for about 100 students (Mr. Hollister's estimate) from schools which were accredited for the first time during the past year, we may expect a freshman class of 1836 next fall as compared with 2079 on Noember 1, 19.16. (2) Upper-Class Men. In the latter part of May I sent a returnpostal-card query, also, to all the male students at Urbana, exclusive of