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by Robert MacDermid

26 June 2002 - The first year of the double cohort enrolment bulge will be arriving at York this fall, and early application and acceptance figures suggest that it will be larger than expected.

The "double cohort" refers to the enrolment bulge created by two final year high school classes graduating in the same year as a result of the provincial government's decision to end grade thirteen.  The near double-sized graduating class will happen in June 2003.

A significant number of fast-tracking high school students accelerated their studies and finished five years of credits in four years thus avoiding the crowded 2003 application year.  This group have pushed up university application and acceptance figures to province-wide highs.

University applications from high school students to all Ontario universities were up by over 16% or about 10 000 graduates.  The number making York a first choice on their application was up by 14.5% and almost 800 students over last year's total. Other universities experienced even higher rates of application growth with Carleton's first choice applications swelling by 23%, McMaster by 20%, Queen's by 26% and University of Toronto by 21%.

As application figures are translated into admissions over the summer, it increasingly looks as if the entering class will be larger than ever. As of June 17 this year, York's first year admissions were up 36.6% over a similar point in last year's admissions cycle. The growth in York's acceptance numbers was second only to Trent. The U of T's admissions are up just 8%.

Application and admission information can be found at the website for the Ontario Universities Application Centre.

While the double cohort of graduating high school students is the largest component of an expected enrolment bulge, the bigger than normal cohort of university age children of the baby-boom generation will further swell university admissions. On top of these two sources of enrolment growth can be added higher participation rates as more university age students recognize the value of a university education. York's admission plans for the next 10 years are described in the V-P Academic's recent presentation to Senate: Academic Planning and Budget Update. That presentation shows York's student count growing from about 38,000 in 2001-02 to close to 48 000 in 2005-06 and possibly over 50 000 by the end of the decade.

How can we take all these new students without expanding class sizes, or teaching on the weekends or over the internet? Will large entering classes make it impossible to preserve smaller class sizes at the upper levels? Do we even have the space, the lecture halls and labs in which to "teach" this number of students? Is York building the right kinds of space to accommodate these students? And who will teach them - more part-time instructors, more graduate students or more tenure-stream faculty?

This is the first of a series on the double cohort. Up next: Financing the Double Cohort and Teaching the Double Cohort.