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Because of the coronavirus pandemic, many incoming freshmen at UNLV did not take the SAT or ACT standardized college exams. To help university officials place those students in the proper classes in the fall, UNLV is asking any incoming student to take an online placement test.
Friday, May 7, 2021 | 2 a.m.
Steve McKellips arrived at Marquette University with four years of Spanish on his high school transcript.
When it came time to get placed in a first-year college Spanish course, admission officials used that background to determine where he would best fit. He may not have agreed with where he started off on the Spanish-program track, initially feeling he was in a class that was too basic, but he can’t argue with the end result: he minored in Spanish.
Steve McKellips is UNLV’s associate vice president for enrollment and student services.
“It’s all about finding the right class to fit your skill set,” said McKellips, UNLV’s associate vice president for enrollment and student services.
McKellips, now on the other side of the enrollment process, is busy placing the roughly 4,400 first-time UNLV students who will begin at the university in the fall in appropriate courses. The process has been made more difficult because many students couldn’t take the ACT and SAT standardized exams since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
Instead, incoming students who didn’t take the ACT or SAT will be asked to take a 45-minute online placement test issued by UNLV. McKellips and his colleagues then will use those scores in determining which courses will be on a student’s initial schedule. The test is on English and math skills.
The goal is to give students the “best schedule for what you want to accomplish,” McKellips said.
The placement dilemma is surely being felt at other universities nationwide as the country emerges from the pandemic. It’s compounded at UNLV because some prospective students still haven’t notified the university whether they will accept the university’s offer of admission.
UNLV — like all Nevada System of Higher Education schools — doesn’t require an enrollment deposit for incoming students. That leaves the university still waiting to hear from a significant number of students whether they will accept admission and attend UNLV.
“There are some dominoes that need to fall,” McKellips said.
UNLV typically attracts applicants from all 50 states and outside of the country, with most applicants coming from the Western U.S., especially from California and Hawaii. The biggest demographic, of course, are locals.
For Liberty High senior Kendal Eastburn, deciding to attend UNLV was an easy decision. She’s familiar with the campus from attending events there throughout her childhood and plans to study event management in the highly-regarded hospitality school.
“It felt like a no-brainer,” she said.
The first-year retention rate at UNLV is 79.8%, officials said. Of the roughly 4,400 new students, 44.3% will graduate, if past averages hold.
Applications for admission for the fall 2021 semester were initially slow in what McKellips labels as the “most abnormal year in higher-education history,” but those applications picked up in March. In total, the COVID year will produce about the same amount of students, he said.
But the pandemic has created a rush in the placement process. Orientation sessions for the fall semester, when incoming students receive their schedule, will occur through mid-July.
McKellips stresses to potential students to notify the university that they will be attending UNLV. Then, they need to take the next step and complete the placement exam — if needed. Acceptance letters will detail whether a student needs to take the placement exam.
“We are at a crisis point,” he said. “We need those people who aren’t sure where they are going to decide because there’s another step in there.”
More important, McKellips says, “You want to be the right class. You don’t want to pay for a class you already know.”
Sara MacNeil contributed to this story.
