The number of undergraduate applications from minority students has doubled in a span of two years, but a large portion of students don’t complete them, said the director of admissions.

Of the minority students who applied for admission last fall, about 43 percent did not complete their application, according to admissions data. About 20 percent of white students did not complete their application.

Ray Brown, dean of admissions, said some students do not complete their application because they lose interest or get admitted somewhere else. He said minorities, especially black students, have more options because they are heavily recruited by colleges and universities seeking to increase the number of under-represented students on college campuses.

“Everyone is scrambling to recruit them,” Brown said.

He said of the four ethnic groups the university recognizes as minorities ­- blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans – applications increased from 1,973 to 3.956 or about 200 percent from 2005 to 2007.

The number of white applicants increased about 24 percent from 2005 to 2007, and the number of international applicants increased about 48 percent in the same period, according to admissions data.

The university admitted about 58 percent of the minority students who completed their application, and of the 1,294 minority students who were admitted, 296 enrolled, according to admissions data.

Tyrone Jimmison, an admissions counselor, said some minority students question their qualifications when applying to the university.

“Our standards aren’t subpar by any means, but they’re pretty high standards,” Jimmison said. “When students find that out, they realize that maybe they are not qualified, or they think that they are not qualified, so they do not finish filling out their applications.”

Brown said minority students comprise almost 19 percent of the fall 2007 freshman class, and minorities represented 9 percent of the freshman class in 1998.

Minority students make up about 15 percent of the student body, according to the 2007 TCU Fact Book. Hispanics are the largest minority group on campus, accounting for 7.2 percent of the student population.

Other private universities in Texas have a higher minority enrollment than TCU. Minorities, as recognized by TCU, account for about 21 percent of the student population at Southern Methodist University, about 23 percent at Baylor University and about 30 percent at Rice University, according to their university Web sites.

Brown said he attributes the growing presence of minorities on campus to several local, statewide and national initiatives targeting these groups.

Greg Trevino, director of Intercultural Education and Services, said Inclusiveness and Intercultural Services complements the admissions office’s efforts to recruit minorities and increase diversity on campus.

Trevino said the two most popular programs are the Minority High School Conference and the Community Scholars Program.

Every March, the Minority High School Conference attracts more than 100 minority students from high schools in the area for an overnight stay at TCU, Trevino said. High school students participate in workshops and interact with current students to learn about the college admissions process, he said.

“It seems to also be popular with our current students because we never seem to have a shortage of mentors,” Trevino said.

The Community Scholars Program awards scholarships to minority students from nine local high schools.

Statewide efforts to recruit minority students include Camp College, a program that enlists the participation of colleges and universities across Texas to prepare under-represented students for higher education, Brown said. TCU hosted the camp for three years, and staff members are still involved in the camp’s programming aspects, he said.

The university hosted and sponsored a National Hispanic Institute program for five years, Brown said. The institute is a nonprofit organization that seeks to educate Hispanic students across the country about the college admissions process. Brown said the weeklong summer camp for Hispanic students will be at a different campus this year, but TCU will continue to be involved with the institute.

Brown said TCU also recruits students through word of mouth. He said students who participate in university programs return to their communities and recommend TCU to other students. Black Senior Weekend, a new program targeting black high school seniors, is an example of viral marketing, Brown said.

“The buzz that we heard from the students while they were here and since then has just been beyond our expectations,” Brown said.

A short-term goal is to boost minority presence in the freshman class to 25 percent, Brown said.

“I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to make some bigger jumps between now and the next few years,” he said.

For Your Info

Total minority applicants
2005: 1,973
2006: 2,557
2007: 3,956
Fall 2007

Freshman class minority enrollment
Asian: 44
Black: 94
Hispanic: 148
Native American: 10
Asian: 2.5 percent
Black: 5.1 percent
Hispanic: 7.2 percent
Native American: 0.5 percent
White: 74.7 percent
Unknown: 4.9 percent
Nonresident: 5.1 percent