Attributed to admission standards, advising improvements

A higher percentage of freshmen returned to the UA for their sophomore year in 2001-02 than in any of the past 10 years, university statistics show.

Seventy-nine percent of freshmen returned to the University of Arizona from last year, a 2 percent increase from the year before.

Richard Kroc, director of the Office of Curricular and Enrollment Research, said that although the increase may appear insignificant, retention rates have long hovered at 76 percent. Last year the number hit 77.

The university began recording retention rates in 1987, and until last year, that number had never been higher than 78 percent.

Although university officials are pleased that the rate is rising, 79 percent is still much lower than top public universities, where retention rates hover in the 95 percent and higher range.

According to U.S. News and World Report, the University of Virginia had the highest freshman retention rate of major American public universities, at 97 percent.

Still, Lynne Tronsdal, vice president of undergraduate administration, said UA officials have been working for years to increase freshman retention rates.

She said improvements in advising and orientations as well as more interesting general education classes have been key reasons for the increase.

But Tronsdal also said the increases could be linked to the UA's higher admission standards for incoming freshmen. Since the early 1990s, admission standards for the UA have increased, making it more difficult for some students to get into the university.

Over the past five years, the average grade point average for incoming freshmen has gone up from 3.27 in 1995 to 3.35 in 2000.

"We want people here who want to be here," Tronsdal said.

Kroc said the study does not suggest any possible reasons why the retention rate may have increased, but he offered his own perspective.

"I believe this had something to do with better preparation in high school," Kroc said. "Students may feel more prepared for college."

UA administrators are betting that the $20 million Integrated Learning Center, which will open in January after nearly a decade of planning, will improve the freshman-year experience even more.

The center will bring advising, tutoring, library resources and classrooms for first- and second-year students into one place.

Tronsdal said the goal of the ILC is to keep the retention rate high, but UA administrators are also hoping the number jumps even more.

"We're never going to be satisfied," Tronsdal said.

She said UA alumni have told her they are pleased at the attention that is now paid to freshmen - a change from the "academic Darwinism" she said they remember from the past. Tronsdal said, at one time, coming to the UA was "survival of the fittest."

She said administrators have learned not to "front-load resources" so that high retention continues past the freshman year.

"It's been a tremendous effort by not one person," Tronsdal said. "It's been a number of people."