Monday marks the 10th day of classes.

NIU will take the fall 10th-day enrollment count Sept. 10, to gather useful information about the university population and trends.

NIU listed the 2006 fall semester’s 10th-day enrollment at 25,313 students, the university’s highest enrollment level since 1987, when it listed an enrollment of 25,455, according to the NIU Data Book.

“We expect to meet the enrollment goals of the university as far as our new freshmen,” said Bob Burk, the director of the office of admissions. “We’re a little bit hot on transfers right now, but I think our overall counts are very close to what our targets are.”

Currently, the university seems to be in good shape and is meeting its goals concerning stability, Burk said.

“Our enrollments at NIU should be stable and that is exactly what the president wanted,” Burk said.

Some changes were made in admissions to compensate for an oversized freshman class in the 2006 school year.

“The target for the freshman class was lower than last year because it came in about 200 high of where we wanted to be,” Burk said. “So the freshman class is back to the original target of around 3,000 to 3,050.”

NIU typically targets around 25,000 students for total enrollment. Since 2002, NIU’s enrollment has hovered around the target.

As stated in the NIU data book, the total enrollment at NIU followed a gradual decrease from 25,455 in 1987 down to 21,609 in 1996. Since 1996, enrollment has seen an increase every year except 2000 and 2004.

The 10th-day count in fall 2006 had the largest undergraduate enrollment, with 18,816, since 1987 with 18,959.

The largest freshman class at NIU since 1990’s count of 3,408 was also in 2006 with 3,247 students, according to the NIU Data Book. However, the amount of transfer students in 2006 was down to 1,929 from 2,169 in 2005. The 2006 transfer number in the fall semester was at a low since 1988 with 1,754.

The 10th-day enrollment count should be out early next week, Burk said.