KNOXVILLE — The typical freshman at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville is 18, a Tennessean and may not have yet picked a major.
hese and myriad of other facts can be found in the 1999 Profile of First-Time Freshman produced by the university’s Office of Institutional Research and Assessment. It contains information on the last five first-year classes.
Two-thirds of the students are 18 years old and 32 percent are 19, the report shows. Nearly 80 percent are from Tennessee, down 2 percent from five years ago.
This year’s class is more racially diverse than in 1995. Eight percent of the 4,155 freshmen are African-American, compared to 4.6 percent (161 of 3,509) five years ago.
UT Chancellor Bill Snyder said the increase is good news and is the result of an institutional commitment to improve minority recruiting and admissions.
More than 42 percent of the freshmen brought high school grade point averages of 3.5-4.0 to campus. That’s an increase of 9.4 percent over five years. Their average ACT score is 23.8 — for the third straight year.
Twenty-eight percent are enrolled in the University rather than in a specific college, an indication many haven’t decided on a major, the report says.
In the 10 academic colleges, one-fourth are in Arts and Sciences and 16 percent in business administration.