If there seems to be just as many faces as last year, there’s a reason.

The number of incoming freshmen this year is expected to be about the same as last year, but it’s getting harder to tell what the exact numbers are going to be, according to Bettina Huber, Director of Institutional Research at CSUN.

“It’s hard to tell how many (students) will come,” Huber said. It has become a lot easier to apply to universities online, and some students will now apply to 10 or more universities before deciding on where to go. She said students used to apply to only two or three.

According to university officials, overall student numbers are expected to be about the same as last year.

The extra college applications that students filled out made it harder to determine how many first-time freshmen have actually shown up for classes at CSUN in the first week because the university saw an increase in the number of applications received and a lower ratio of the applicants deciding to attend, said Huber.

As of Aug. 29 there were 19,424 people who applied to go to CSUN. Of those applicants, 13,548 were admitted, said Eric Forbes, Director of Admissions and Records at CSUN. As far as the requirements for admittance, “everything’s the same as last fall,” said Forbes.

Last year there were about 3,700 incoming freshmen for the fall semester, Huber said. As of Aug. 31, there were 3,668 incoming freshmen, but people are still adding and dropping classes.

“The numbers aren’t official,” said Amy Matsubara, an administrative analyst at CSUN. She said the number of incoming freshmen won’t be official until four weeks after the beginning of the semester, because that is when students are no longer allowed to enroll in classes.

Until then, the number of incoming freshmen can go up and down, not only by students adding and dropping, but also because of freshmen who have to complete the verification process with their exit exams from high school, said Forbes.

Before students are out of high school they have to pass an exit exam in order to graduate, and these students cannot be given financial aid until it is verified that they passed the test, said Forbes.

The most popular college for first-time freshmen to enroll in this semester was the College of Business and Economics, which as of Aug. 31 had 656 enrolled first-time freshmen, the Department of Institutional Research reported in daily registration updates on their Web site. The report showed the College of Arts, Media, and Communication as receiving the second highest amount of first-time freshmen with 571 enrolled.

William Kammer can be contacted at city@csun.edu.