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8 NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS The National Scholars Program should set a goal of doubling the number of underparticipating minorities earning a Ph.D. in mathematics, the physical sciences, and engineering each year. It is our proposal, therefore, that the program produce 235 minority Ph.D.s in those fields every year. That process led the committee to propose that 750 students should enter the National Scholars Program as freshmen. Supplemented by 225 students entering as sophomores and juniors, that total of 975 undergraduate National Scholars would produce approxi- mately 725 bachelor's degree recipients, 362 doctoral study entrants, and 23 5 Ph.D. s. The committee based these projections on the following estimates of persistence: . 74 percent of undergraduate National Scholars graduating from college with a degree in the pertinent fields 50 percent of bachelor's degree recipients entering doctoral study in the pertinent fields at an NSP institution 65 percent ofthose doctoral study entrants earning a Ph.D. At these rates? the overall completion rate for all those National Scholars who begin the program through the Ph.D. would be 24 percent. We recognize that these are optimistic numbers' even though the program is specifically designed to choose the right students and keep them on track to the Ph.D. Student attrition at all levels will need to be closely monitored and? if necessary, additional students admitted to the program at the undergraduate and/or graduate level. Once the program is fully implemented and reaches steady state, the number of students at each level would be 3~048 undergraduate students (750 freshmen, 763 sohomores' 787 juniors, and 748 seniors) and 1,810 doctoral students (362 students per year for five years). These estimates would result in an average number of students ranging from 100 to 150 undergraduates and from 60 to 90 doctoral students in each of 20 to 30 consortiums. However, since individual consortiums might be configured in very different ways and with wide variation in the number of departments, colleges, and · · · . · - universities participating, t nese averages are not intended to establish limits for the size of consortiums. Consortiums may be permitted to replace up to 20 percent of their entering student enrollments in order to admit a small number of late bloomers or community college transfers. There must be a carefill · ~.. . . .
28 examination of the reasons that spaces are available at certain points in the program in order to differentiate between some level of anticipated and reasonable attrition and attrition that stems from an ineffective program.
