Competition for undergraduate admittance to SUNY schools, such as Binghamton University and University at Albany, seems to be on the rise, according to officials.

While it is still too early to compose data for the overall applicant pool for the fall 2009 semester, Brian Hazlett, director of undergraduate recruitment at BU, said the numbers for this year are already up among early applicants when compared to last year’s. Hazlett said the trend is expected to continue for regular applicants as well.

While Binghamton plans to maintain its typical enrollment level of 2,000 freshmen, Hazlett noted that “more students [are choosing] to enroll at Binghamton.” Hazlett also said that an increased number of returning students are choosing to live on campus instead of moving off campus, and that the University is accounting for this expanding student population by building the first of many new residence halls.

The first new building of Newing Community is set to be finished by the fall semester.

This new building will provide spots for approximately 330 additional students starting in the fall, he said.

SUNY Albany is experiencing a similar increase in applicants.

Heather Miller, an admissions counselor at the school, said that there has been a 9 percent increase in applicants since last year, and that UAlbany has witnessed an increase of about 2,000 applicants each year for a few years now.

According to Miller, UAlbany has also experienced a relatively high number of transfer applicants for the spring 2009 semester. Despite the rise in applications, Miller said that as with Binghamton, the school plans to maintain the same enrollment rate.

Frances Bernstein, associate director of admissions at University at Buffalo, stated that the school’s “undergraduate enrollment goals are generally the same for [the] coming [2009] cycle.”

Similarly to BU, Bernstein said that it is too soon in the admissions process to compose data regarding the applicant pool for fall 2009.

Despite the increase in applications for BU, along with the other SUNY schools, Hazlett said the University is standing by its acceptance guidelines.

“Binghamton continues to accept the best and brightest students to fill the freshman class each year,” Hazlett said, adding that it’s going to be harder to get into BU, as the University’s acceptance rate last year was 38 percent for the freshman class.

Less than 3 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities have an acceptance rate of below 50 percent, which Hazlett said was another example of Binghamton’s “selectivity.”

“Overall, this is going to be a very difficult year to predict [for undergraduate admittance],” he said.