The students of the J. Mack Robinson College of Business (RCB) make up the second largest college at Georgia State University (GSU). Almost 5,000 undergraduates and over 2,500 graduate students enrolled in fall semester 1998.

This "Students" chapter has three main divisions: undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students. Within each division, recruitment practices and diversity efforts are presented first. Selection information follows, including summaries of admission credentials and profiles of new enrollees. Then retention standards are discussed. Academic advisement for undergraduate and master's students is described following the master's students section. A discussion of plans for the next five years and descriptions of career planning and placement activities conclude each section of the chapter.

In accordance with Standard S.1.a, recruitment and selection of undergraduate students are guided by the mission of the university (Reference S-1: 1998-99 GSU General Catalog, p. 8). An expanded statement of the mission is part of the university's report to the Southern Association of Colleges and School (Reference S-3: 1996-98 Strategic Report/Educational Access in a Changing Environment, pp. 16-17).

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions' 1998-1999 Student Recruitment Marketing Plan (Reference S-4) describes the undergraduate marketing strategies and objectives. [Standard S.1.a] To meet the mission's goal of providing educational opportunities for both traditional and nontraditional students, the recruitment practices aim to:

• appeal to the traditional college-bound student who may be interested in residential life, student activities and full-time enrollment status. This is a relatively new focus of the university's recruitment that was helped by the university's receiving the 1996 Olympic Village for use as dormitories.
• continue to be a strong attraction for the business community and non-traditional students. (Marketing Plan, p. 11, item 3)
• continue to recognize diversity as a great strength of GSU and be sensitive to issues that ffect the recruitment and matriculation of minorities and women. (Marketing Plan, p. 11, item 7). [Standard S.1.b]

An example of the effectiveness of recruitment activities in enhancing diversity relates to honors students:

The Calendar of Events on the inside of the back page of the recruitment plan presents the entire range of undergraduate recruitment activities. As a result of these efforts, the university hopes to increase the number and quality of enrolled students.

A major recruitment strategy for the future is the partnership begun in 1998 with Georgia Perimeter College (GPC), GSU's major two-year feeder school. It features a statement from GSU's director of undergraduate admissions in GPC's primary publication that explains how the GPC associate's degree program prepares students for success at GSU. Special recruitment events at GPC and on the GSU campus for GPC students are held and a streamlined admission/financial aid process is provided. Plans are to expand the partnership to Atlanta Metropolitan College, GSU's major predominantly minority two-year feeder school.

Joint visits to two-year schools with Georgia Institute of Technology admissions counselors began in 1998 and will be continued in upcoming years. These visits have proved to be a good match because there is not significant overlap in the types of students the two schools recruit.

Lacking in GSU's ability to effectively recruit top transfer students are the number and size of merit scholarships. Other than presidential assistantships (work programs designed to help students build a relationship with their major department), there are few funds to attract prospective transfer students to GSU. Through the fundraising efforts of the GSU Foundation, it is hoped that this situation will improve.

The pool of freshmen is expected to increase based on projections of the number of high school graduates in Georgia in the next decade and beyond. The university will add emphasis to freshmen recruitment as a way to take advantage of this pool to offset potential loss in enrollment due to increased admission criteria. (See the next section.)

Average Admission Credentials. Tables S--1 through S--6 show the numbers of applications and the admission credentials of all undergraduates accepted to the university in the fall terms 1994--1998 and of those accepted as bachelor's students in the RCB for the same terms.

Undergraduate applications university wide grew 2.7% from 1994 to 1995, declined slightly in 1996, and rebounded with a 5.1% increase in fall 1997. The decline in applications and new enrollees in fall 1998 is attributed primarily to the semester conversion. Anecdotal responses from other institutions that have converted to semesters indicated this is a temporary dip in applications and enrollment that is to be expected.

Other factors included the elimination of the Learning Support Program, a program for applicants who were not directly admissible to an academic program but who met specific minimum standards; admission to LSP allowed them to take certain noncredit courses in the areas in which they needed assistance before admission to a degree program. More than 850 students were admitted to LSP the previous year. Further, admission requirements were raised for fall 1998 as part of the phase-in to 2001 standards and denials were up more than 50%.

Georgia State's top two-year feeder colleges experienced dramatic declines in enrollment in fall 1998 due to semester conversion and, possibly, also due to the strong economy. Thus the forecast is that transfer applications are not likely to increase in the next few years. This could be offset by increased applications from freshmen. Graduates from Georgia public high schools, which had declined in the early 90's, have begun to increase and are projected to continue to increase beyond the next decade by 500 to 2500 additional students a year. (Reference S-5: Knocking at the College Door, p. 88--national projections from The College Board and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, February 1998.) The increase in the pool of potential freshmen is also expected to help the university offset any significant loss in enrollment due to the more stringent admission criteria, described above, that are currently being phased in.

Applications to the business program have remained strong over the five-year period with only a slight decrease in number of applications for fall 1997. Even with the university's recent increases in admission standards, business acceptances had continued to increase until fall 1998.

All GSU Undergraduate Applications

Source: GSU Office of Undergraduate Admissions

College Enrollment Standards. Part of the college's mission is the commitment to "academic excellence through advancing the creation and dissemination of knowledge in business and management." To increase the academic level in its junior/senior-level courses, the college has adopted enrollment standards that affect all students. These enrollment standards are not admission requirements for the BBA program, but they do control who can enroll in upper-level business courses. The standards are given in the college's chapter of the undergraduate catalog and also appear on various handouts given to students. The chronology of the undergraduate enrollment standards follows:

Fall 1991 -- minimum 2.00 GSU GPA for enrollment in senior-level business courses

Fall 1992 -- junior-level business courses added to enrollment standards

Fall 1998 -- minimum 2.10 GSU GPA for enrollment in junior/senior-level business courses.

Exceptions to the chronology above:

• Accounting -- Effective fall 1993, students who had attempted two or more courses at GSU were required to have at least a 2.10 GSU GPA to enroll in senior-level accounting courses.

• Computer Information Systems -- Effective fall 1998, students who had attempted three or more courses at GSU were required to have at least a 2.40 GSU GPA to enroll in junior/senior-level computer information systems courses.

A three-step phase-in of increased standards for enrolling in upper-level RCB courses is planned:

Fall 1998 -- 2.10 minimum GSU GPA

Fall 2000 -- 2.30 minimum GSU GPA

Fall 2002 -- 2.50 minimum GSU GPA

These college standards are in keeping with (and slightly ahead of) the university's phasing in of higher admission standards for all students. The minimum transfer GPA for admission to the university for applicants with 30 or more semester hours of college credit is now 2.10. Effective summer 2001 the minimum will be 2.30. The minimum in 2001 is part of the System-wide raising of standards mentioned earlier in this section. [Standard S.1.c]

Quality of Undergraduate Graduates. The minimum cumulative GSU GPA required for graduation with a bachelor's degree is 2.00. Graduation in the various honors categories (cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude) requires at least a 3.50 cumulative GSU GPA. Over the past five years, between 57% and 64% of business graduates had cumulative GPAs between 2.50 and 3.49 and between 10% and 19% completed their degrees in an honors category. These results indicate that most students that complete the bachelor's degree do so with a level of performance well beyond the minimum required; the percentage of honors graduates, the lowest among the GSU colleges, reflects the relatively strict grading standards in business courses.

New Enrollees--Undergraduate Program, University and College. Tables S--7 and S--8 show new enrollment in the fall terms 1994-1998. Though students can be admitted at any term of the year, fall is a representative snapshot; over half of the applications received each year are for that term.

The slight decline in total new enrollees (Table S--7) from fall 1995 to fall 1996 can be attributed to the beginning of complete enforcement of College Preparatory Curriculum (CPC) requirements. These requirements for specified numbers of high school units of English, science, mathematics, social science, and foreign language had been phased in over several years with students being allowed to take additional college courses to satisfy the CPC deficiencies. Fall 1996 was the first term that prohibited admission if applicants had any CPC deficiencies. A number of applicants, particularly African-American and Hispanic, would have been admitted except that they had one or more CPC deficiencies. (They could attend a two-year school and transfer to GSU later.)

Numbers in ( ) = percent of total new enrollment Source: GSU Office of Undergraduate Admissions

By Race/Ethnic Category

Numbers in ( ) = percent of total new enrollment Source: GSU Office of Undergraduate Admissions

The 1997-98 year was the first where all Georgia public high schools required CPC units to be satisfied to qualify for graduation with a college prep diploma; this helped enrollment rebound, except for Asian students. Gwinnett County, in the metro Atlanta area, had been a major feeder to GSU for Asian students because the county enrolled large numbers of Asian high school students. In fall 1997, however, the county discontinued the practice of issuing I-20s to high school students from abroad. The decline continued in fall 1998 when the English-as-a-Second-Language program changed its focus and, as the Intensive English Program replaced it, the ability to admit students readily to this program was significantly changed. Asian students had frequently qualified for admission with the requirement that English preparatory courses be taken.

In fall 1998 there was also a significant drop in new African-American students, even though they continued to account for over 30% of undergraduate enrollment. The Learning Support Program, which provided remedial help in reading, English, and mathematics, was eliminated. New enrollees in the college (Table S--8) remained relatively strong in each group, except for Asians, until fall 1998. The college was affected by the same factors in fall 1998 as was the university as a whole.

Adherence to the university's scholastic discipline policy assists in graduating well-prepared students by ensuring that undergraduates meet the retention standards of the University Senate (Reference S-1: 1998-99 GSU General Catalog, pp. 52-55). [Standard S.1.c]

Until fall 1996, a first suspension was for a minimum of two quarters; a second was for at least one year; a third meant permanent exclusion from the university. Based on data reviewed by the Committee on Admissions and Standards of the Senate, it appeared that returning suspendees were not being successful in repairing their academic deficiencies; this was a disservice to the students and contributed to diminished academic standards for the university.

As of fall 1996, the university's suspension policy calls for a first suspension of a minimum of two quarters (now one semester) and for the second suspension to result in exclusion. Before students can return from first suspension, an assessment with the GSU Counseling Center is now required. The purpose of the assessment is to identify academic and personal problem areas through group and individual sessions and testing and to give students concrete suggestions for each problem area. The assessments are also intended to help students determine if it is in their best academic interests to reenroll at all. Students on warning and probation also are encouraged to participate in the assessments with the goal of remedying problems before they result in suspension.

After two years of experience with the assessments, the university Committee on Admissions and Standards concluded that this intervention is not soon enough to be of significant help. An academic improvement program (AIP) was approved by the University Senate during spring 1999 that raises the cumulative GSU GPA required to stay off scholastic probation and requires students on probation to participate in the AIP. This program includes a combination of required meetings with advisers in the Department of Academic Foundations, an assessment with the GSU Counseling Center and required follow up, reduced course loads, and enrollment in the course Survival Skills for College. Details will be available in the review committee's resource room (Reference: S-6).

GSU 1010, Freshman Orientation, is a new semester-long orientation course geared toward incoming freshmen although any student can enroll. The course aims to ease the transition from high school to the university environment. Students' responsibilities, learning strategies, and a thorough introduction to the university's resources and services are among the topics covered. (Reference S-7.)

Tutorial assistance at the university and college levels includes the following:

• The Math Assistance Complex supports undergraduate instruction program by providing tutorial assistance to students who are taking lower-division courses in mathematics and statistics.
• The Writing Center in the Department of English offers free assistance to students with writing assignments required in any university course. Help in preparing for the essay portion of the Regents' Test is also available.
• The Accounting Tutorial Lab, sponsored by the School of Accountancy and Beta Alpha Psi, provides tutorial assistance to students enrolled in the accounting principles courses.
• Microcomputer labs offer computer-assisted instruction packages and tutorial sessions.
• The Department of Finance holds weekly tutorial/review session to help students understand the topics covered in class the preceding week.
• The Department of Economics provides tutorial assistance for the principles courses in microeconomics and macroeconomics.

The recruitment and selection of undergraduate students through the next five years will focus on:

• increasing the freshman pool to offset possible losses due to the phase-in of the university's increased admissions criteria that will be complete in 2001 and take advantage of the projected increases in the number of high school graduates in Georgia; and
• expanding partnerships with two-year schools to encourage their students to see GSU as the "institution of choice" when they make their selection of a four-year school.

The RCB Strategic Plan (Appendix M-1) does not expect significant growth in BBA enrollment because of both the increased university admission standards and the increased college enrollment standards previously mentioned. The phase-in of the college enrollment standards can be adjusted, if necessary, to ensure enrollments meet budgetary goals.

University Resources. The university provides the majority of career planning and placement services centrally for all undergraduates through the Office of Career and Job Search Services (CJSS). The mission of CJSS is to serve GSU students by providing job search skills and information as well as career and employment linkages. The following services and programs are offered to all university students, which includes undergraduate business students. [Standard S.2]

• Resume Expert Plus computerized resume referral
• On-campus interviewing
• Position vacancy listing
• Career-related workshops and programs

-- Resume writing/Correspondence -- Career Conversations

-- Interviewing Skills -- Etiquette Dinner

-- Job Search Strategies -- Practice with Professionals (mock interviews)

• Individual Advising
• Job Fairs and Career Days
• JobLinks Bulletin
• CareerLinks Newsletter

Target Population by Schools/School: Business - 958 (37.5%)

Survey Respondents by College: Business - 312 (39.8%)

Median full-time salary by Major:

-- Accounting: $31,250

-- Computer Information Systems: $37,500

-- Finance: $31,000

-- Management: $30,333

-- Marketing: $26,000

College Resources. The RCB supports the Graduate Business Placement Office (GBPO), which also provides some career planning and placement assistance to undergraduate business students. Upon request, undergraduate business students have access to the extensive GBPO library which houses numerous career planning guides and reference materials to help students conduct a successful job search. Undergraduate business students receive special notices about the annual business career fair ("EXPO") via mail and faculty announcements in class.

In August 1998, the college hired an internship coordinator who is responsible for the development and implementation of the college's internship programs. The position will strengthen existing company relationships and develop new employer prospects for undergraduate as well as graduate student internships.

In addition, the college finances half the cost of the server designated to coordinate the on-campus interviewing process for the entire university. Each year, undergraduate and graduate business students participate in a significant portion of the on-campus interviews.

Master's students are recruited and admitted by the RCB. Monitoring progress toward their degree is done at the college level with joint college/university clearance for graduation. There is no central graduate school at GSU.

The master's students of the college are divided into three groups for purposes of description and display of data:

• the "regular" MBA program (excludes Executive MBA), representing two-thirds of the master's enrollment,
• the specialized master's programs (all master's programs other than MBA), and
• the Executive MBA program.

MBA and Specialized Master's Programs. The Office of Academic Assistance and Master's Admissions (OAA) is responsible for recruitment for the college's master's programs. The OAA endeavors to promote the college and its programs throughout the world and to recruit a diverse pool of applicants with varying backgrounds and qualifications. Approximately 30,000 brochures, application packets and graduate bulletins are distributed each year to prospective applicants requesting information or at recruitment events. Events in the past five years have included the following:

• Regularly scheduled information sessions on the main campus downtown and at the university's satellite location, North Metro Center;
• Evening receptions for prospective applicants downtown and near North Metro Center;
• Attendance at local, national and international recruitment fairs and forums.

As budget allows, the college's Office of External Affairs coordinates advertisements for the college in general and its master's programs specifically. Since 1996, the ads have been designed pro bono by an Atlanta firm. Ads run periodically in local newspapers and on Atlanta radio stations to coincide with events, such as receptions, and as a general recruitment effort. On a national level in 1997, advertisements appeared in Business Week and Minority MBA magazines and Peterson's MBA Program Directory. In 1998, Minority MBA was dropped due to lack of response and replaced by The MBA Career Guide. Other national minority publications are being researched for fall 1999.

When the college advertised on radio, two stations are chosen, one of which has demographics that indicate substantial minority listeners. The hope is to continue and expand advertising in the future if funding is available.

The college participated in the Graduate Management Admissions Search Service (GMASS) for several years but stopped after 1994 when an analysis of results revealed that it was not fruitful.

Minority recruitment for the MBA and specialized master's programs is a combination of attending school fairs, direct mail, specified financial aid (until 1998), and the limited advertisements described above. Every fall for over ten years, a college representative attends a recruitment fair held at Atlanta University, a complex of historically black colleges, to recruit students from Morehouse, Spelman, Clark, and Morris Brown colleges. College materials are also sent when a university representative attends recruitment fairs out of town, including historically black schools in the University System of Georgia such as Fort Valley State University.

Destination MBA is a series of workshops and recruitment fairs held throughout the country that are sponsored jointly by the National Black MBA Association, the National Society of Hispanic MBAs, and the Graduate Management Admission Council and are targeted to minority students. A college representative attends this event when held in Atlanta and admission materials are mailed to attendees throughout the country who specify an interest in attending a graduate program in the southeast.

The college receives $22,500 annually for Regents' Opportunity Scholarships. Recipients must be graduate students who are residents of Georgia and have documented financial need. From the inception in 1982-83 until the 1998-99 year, recipients were limited to minority students. Eligibility was broadened by the university in 1998-99 to include all racial groups.

Executive MBA Program. The Executive MBA ensures that each of its recruitment activities meets the program's mission and goals. Among these activities are open-house receptions held once a month during the school year. The goal of these receptions is to give prospective students adequate knowledge about Georgia State's EMBA program. At the receptions, prospects are given the opportunity to visit their future classroom, meet EMBA faculty and current students and alumni, and to learn the details of the EMBA curriculum.

Other recruitment methods are direct mailings, answering prospects' questions about the program by phone and mail, and information sent to local human resource departments. All of these methods focus on GSU's commitment to offering the best possible educational experience and its belief in encouraging a lifetime of learning and pursuit of excellence. Every contact with a prospective student is intended to convey the RCB's commitment to excellence.

The EMBA program specifically targets women and minorities with three of its eight testimonial advertisements which feature comments from and photographs of an African-American graduate of the program, a female graduate, and a female current student. The African-American graduate's testimonial was created especially to appear in the Atlanta Tribune, an African-American publication, throughout the upcoming recruitment year. The testimonial ad featuring the female graduate and student also has photos and will appear frequently in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, HR Atlanta and the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Plans are to increase the recruitment of minorities and females by increasing the ads targeted at those specific markets.

Another method of recruitment used by the EMBA program to target minorities and females is through general public relations. Any PR notices about the EMBA program are sent to publications of all sorts including the minority publications throughout Georgia and publications such as Today's Atlanta Women.

The college's mission includes the commitment to prepare students for effective careers in a rapidly changing and complex world. Consistent with that mission, the college's selection policies for its master's programs aim to admit students who can both contribute to and benefit from the programs as they prepare for these careers. The policies ensure that college-wide standards are met for each program while also allowing specialized programs the opportunity to set additional or higher criteria if appropriate. [Standards S.1.a and S.1.d]

For the regular MBA and specialized master's programs, the college's Master's Admissions Committee meets regularly to consider whether exceptions to normal standards are warranted by an applicant's exceptional credentials. The Executive MBA program is administered separately but college-wide standards are also met by the EMBA program and additional credentials particularly relevant to this program also are evaluated.

The college's Graduate Bulletin, the master's application packet and the EMBA viewbook describe the admission policies of the various programs.

The primary components of the admission review are the academic record, scores on the Graduate Management Admission Test (total, verbal, and quantitative subscores and analytical writing assessment when available), work experience, and scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language, if applicable. Also reviewed are responses to narrative questions, letters of recommendation if submitted, and results of interviews if required by the particular program or major.

A regionally accredited bachelor's degree or the international equivalent is a fundamental admission standard for the college's master's programs. Applicants to the MBA and specialized master's programs can be considered for probationary admission with an unaccredited degree only if all other admission credentials are strong. Such admissions are rare (fewer than ten a year). In the Executive MBA program, a limited number of applicants (maximum of five) can be accepted without a bachelor's degree if their other credentials, notably GMAT scores and work experience, are exceptional.

Effectiveness of Selection Criteria. An internal validity review of our major admission criteria was done in 1997 by member of the decision sciences faculty. Data on 1147 MBA students and 551 specialized master's students who had completed at least eight courses were studied. For MBAs, the study found that graduate GPA was directly related to GMAT total score, GMAT quantitative and verbal percentiles, undergraduate academic record, and number of years of work experience.

For specialized master's, the study found that graduate GPA was directly related to all criteria except the GMAT quantitative percentile. Given the variation in focus of the specialized master's programs, it is clear that quantitative skills are more important in some programs (Master of Actuarial Science, MS/finance, MS/decision sciences) than in others (MS/management--organizational behavior track, MS/personnel and employment relations). The admissions committee takes the nature of the program into account in reviewing applications.

The EMBA requires ten years of full-time work experience with at least five in management and constructs a class of 50 to 55 students with attention to the mix of industries, occupations, and academic disciplines represented by the class. All applicants are interviewed. The Executive MBA Admissions Committee, which includes the college's director of master's admissions, reviews all applications and makes the final decision. The committee selects students who indicate a commitment to academic excellence and a desire to gain more knowledge about business and management. The program is structured to prepare students to be successful in the global environment that is culturally diverse and changing rapidly.

Average Admission Credential Profiles. Tables S--10 through S--15 present the admission credential profiles of the three groups of master's applicants and enrollees for the fall terms 1994-1998. EMBA students are admitted only in the fall. Students can be admitted to other master's programs at any term of the year. However, as with undergraduates, fall is a representative snapshot; 45 percent of master's applications received each year are for the fall term.

The credentials of accepted applicants who choose to enroll are not markedly different from those of the entire pool of acceptances for each of the three categories. The average undergraduate GPA has remained in the vicinity of 3.00. Average GMAT total scores have risen about ten points in the past five years for the regular MBA and specialized master's programs and 24 points for the EMBA.

New Enrollees MBA Program

All Executive MBA Admissions

Tables S--16 through S--18 show new enrollment in the fall terms 1994-1998 by race/ethnic category and by sex. [Standard S.1.b]

By Race/Ethnic Category and by Sex