Enrollment Trends

Only anecdotal information available

Graduate applications
- apparently up about 25% in general
- some schools apparently experienced dramatic increases
Graduate acceptances
- apparently lower acceptance rates
- apparently more selective financial aid offers

Berkeley's experience, as reported by Mike Clancy on SIGCSE.MEMBERS:

University of Nebraska at Lincoln reported a drop of 20-30% in CS1

Anecdotal information suggests drops between 20% and 30% in CS 1/2 are not uncommon.

Often this drop at the introductory level has not yet progressed to the Junior/Senior level.

But some schools are holding fairly steady at all levels.

Some schools show interesting and quirky patterns. For example, at Grinnell,

An e-commerce course taught by a visitor was extremely popular and probably pulled CS students from various upper-level CS courses. If CS majors in that course had taken the usual upper-level CS courses, the average class upper-level class size would likely have gone from 16 to about 20.
After several years of 10-15 CS majors per graduating class, the number of sophomores declaring CS majors last year rose to 25. (Yeah, Ben Gum! Similarly, when Sam Rebelsky joined the department, the number of majors rose from 5-8 to 10-15.)

created November 12, 2002
last revised November 13, 2002 previous next