Overcrowding at UT Final

Final Paper
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Current Situation
Current class situations can relate almost directly to statistics generated from an admissions survey put out to UT Austin college students online. According to the polls provided by fifty-two UT Austin students, many college attendees would agree with the fact that academic classes aren't like they used to be. According to statistics derived from the online survey, most students estimated their largest class to contain as much as two hundred to four hundred people crammed in one classroom.
When thinking of large compact classes, one can very much assume that many students would feel completely comfortable either chatting with friends, playing games on laptops, or drifting off to sleep. Comfort level serves as a large problem in very large classes for the fact that professors cannot see and probably don't even care whether or not you're paying attention to his or her lectures. Although comfort level, for many, is an important factor in feeling that they can concentrate more efficiently on their studies, there's a difference between relaxed studying and relaxed napping. In the survey, more than two-thirds of the students agree that they have fallen asleep either sometimes or very often during a crowded lecture. More than fifty percent of the surveyors even admit to being comfortable enough to not even show up to their larger classes.
Even though many students felt comfortable enough to drift off is classes, those students actually felt VERY uncomfortable actively participating during lecture. A huge 82.7 percent of the surveyors agreed they were NOT comfortable at all asking their professors questions.
Logically speaking, a typical college students would academically perform stronger when they are in a small class rather than a large class for the fact that their student-to-professor ratio is smaller. With s student-to-professor ratio of 15 to 1, students have a better chance of communicating with their instructors as opposed to a student-to-professor ratio of 400 students to 1 professor. According to statistics, roughly 68 percent of the surveyors feel they would have performed better had the size of their classes been smaller.

Proposal
If more students were to consider taking one or two online classes to replace the large stadium classes, there would logically be a decrease in the amount of people enrolling in those classes that contain an average of three to four hundred students. Our proposal largely consists of having the university offer a greater amount of online courses for a larger variety of different subjects, especially the core subjects that many students must take for general credit. Students who feel they can apply themselves better to their studies by themselves would be able to attend some of their classes on-line in the comfort of their own room, while the students who feel they can learn well in a physically interactive class would be able to have the professor-to-student interaction they need for their own personal perseverance.
Students should have some line of encouragement to take some online classes. Therefore, we propose that students who choose to take a couple online classes will receive a discounted tuition rate per online class they attend. Instead of paying the full rate per online class, for example, they would only have to pay fifty percent of the expected tuition rate per online class. So instead of paying $136 dollars for a course online, a student can get a discount of roughly $68.
Since online classes don't have the physical interaction of actual on-campus classes, one other way to improve online classes is to include a mandatory, weekly discussion session on campus with a teaching assistant so students can feel free to ask the assistant questions and discuss the material among other students taking the online course.

We also propose, along with the encouragement for online classes, a more strict admissions application for incoming high school students. Instead of admitting every single student automatically if they scored within ten percent of their graduating high school class and almost everyone else who aren't in the top ten percent of their class, the university admissions counsel would set up personal, one-on-one interviews of someone on the admissions counsel with an applying high school graduate. Thus, the admissions counsel will have a better factor in determining the incoming freshmen, and university applicants would also have a higher yet equal standard of competition between themselves.

Colin and Rubina, hey sorry i got sick this weekend and my cell broke so it was getting fixed. I have my part of the paper all edited and everything so all we have to do is put everything together. try to call me tomorrow, bc i dont have any of your numbers. -charise

Benefits and Conclusion outline
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Rubina
Problem
Background
- stats of admissions from early UT to recent
- graph

Charise
Current situation and conditions
- survey stats and graphs
Proposal

Colin
Benefits
Conclusion

Survey questions:
1. What is your year?
2. What is your area of study?
3. About how many people were in the biggest class you attended?
-100 or less;100-200,200-300, 300-400, 400-500, more than 500
4. Of the largest class you attended, how well did you perform academically?
5. Of the largest class you attended, about how many times did you skip the class?
6. Do you feel you could have performed better is the class size were smaller?
- strongly disagree to strongly agree
7. During your largest class, do you feel comfortable asking questions to your professor?
8. Of the largest class you attended, were your assignment and exam grades returned promptly?
9. In your larger classes, do you fall asleep often during lectures?
- yes, sometimes, few times, no
10. How large of a problem do you think admission overcrowding is at UT Austin?

Entries

Policies & Fear: Topic Proposal

Group name: admission regulaters
Group members: Charise, Rubina, Colin

What is the problem that you will be trying to solve? Please, describe it in detail.
large class sizes; too many people cause detriment to learning process. Interaction with professors is minimal.

Why is it a problem that cannot wait? What is its significance or urgency?
Every year, class sizes keep on increasing, bringing the population of the campus almost equal to the size of an average city. If class sizes keep on increasing, it creates an intimidating situation for incoming college freshmen

Please present your solution, describing it as realistically as possible.
Write a letter to the campus legislature explaining the situation.
Solution: lower admission rates, highly selective admission criteria, less strict minority admission rules

Where would you look for primary research for this paper?
Surveys, Daily Texas articles, interview professors with a large class size