Transfer student applications hit a 10-year high last fall, prompting changes in the acceptable grade point average for transfers entering without an associate’s degree.

All transfer students without an associate’s degree or 60 or more credits must have a 2.5 GPA. Previously, a 2.0 GPA would suffice.

“The 2.5 GPA requirement did cut down on people coming in with less than an associate’s degree,” Vice Provost Earl Seaver said. “Although, enrollment for this spring is slightly higher than last spring.”

Although transfer student applications are up, actual enrollment has gone down.

“What we did see was a drop of about 200 enrolled transfer students in the fall,” said Donald Larson, executive director of Enrollment Services. “But we had the same number we had before for the spring semester.”

With the increase in applications, enrollment-management tools are being enforced more rigidly, NIU President John Peters said.

“We practice enrollment management almost on a weekly basis,” Peters said. “It’s difficult to set a specific cut-off point.”

Controlling the amount of enrolled transfer students is a concern for the Enrollment Services Office.

“There are no talks of cutting transfer admissions,” Seaver said. “We are just watching for now.”

While enrollment management may be important to regulate increasing applications, it also serves another purpose.

“If a student has a 2.5 GPA, they are more academically prepared once they are here,” Transfer Center Coordinator Missy Gillis said. “It also improves the strength of the academic programs.”

More transfer students find their way here because NIU’s location is near Chicago and a number of community colleges, Gillis said.

“I wanted to come here as a freshman,” said Isabel Vargas, a senior psychology major who transferred from Waubonsee Community College. “It was cheaper to go to the community college because I could commute and it was more convenient.”

Price was also a factor for senior art major Denton Beard, who transferred from Harper Community College.

“It is closer to home and cheaper than the University of Illinois, plus I knew people who went here already,” Beard said. “It is more fun here than I thought it would be.”

College of DuPage, which has 30,378 students and is the largest single-campus community in the country, is a major contributor to the overall transfers to NIU.

“College of DuPage has a huge effect on us,” Gillis said. “For this semester, we added 885 new transfer students just from there.”

Gillis said NIU also gets a lot of transfers from Kishwaukee Community College.

“Kishwaukee sends a lot of people our way,” she said. “But they just don’t send the numbers that COD does.”