Sacramento State has broken records this 2014 fall semester with 3,700 freshmen entering, making it the biggest class in the university’s history.

According to Emiliano Diaz, Director of Admissions, Sac State received a total of 21,055 applications during the priority filing period, with approximately 99 percent of them being in-state.

“Sac State is a destination institution,” Diaz said. “We’ve done a good job of promoting it and growing awareness.”

With growing concerns of bottleneck courses and impacted majors such as business, psychology, nursing and criminal justice, Diaz said effort has been made by providing more online courses for high demand.

Major impaction means the number of applications from fully eligible students to a designated major during the initial filing period, far exceeds the number of spaces available in that major according to admissions.

Dean of Undergraduate Studies Sheree Meyer said students who have expressed interest in an impacted program often have prerequisite courses they need to take.

Over the summer, academic affairs worked closely with deans and department chairs to add capacity to lower division courses, likely to be taken by first year students.

While there were improvements made, Diaz said it is still sometimes difficult for students to find seats in some of the science and math classes.

“I had some difficulty registering because most of the classes were taken,” freshman psychology major Paloma Garcia said. “Some of my classes have more than 200 students.”

Sac State has had a growing number of first-time freshmen over the last few years. This year there was a slight dip in new transfer students which permitted faculty to accommodate more freshmen.

“It helps that during the first year orientation in July, registration is not open to continuing students,” Meyer said. “So our first year students are not competing with students who already had an opportunity to enroll in the Spring. Often departments plan accordingly and add seats and sections to courses needed by freshmen.”

Diaz said having more online courses available has been a benefit to the system because students do not have to be physically on campus to take the course, offering more availability in their schedules.

“Fall is where we bring in our largest numbers,” Diaz said. “The state has given additional help accommodating in terms of funding.”

Fall 2013 had a total of 3,367 freshmen enrolled in courses by the census date, which is usually held by week four.

Diaz expects the numbers to drop this fall by the census date, but not significantly. His advice to incoming freshmen was to not limit themselves to specific times and units, that way they will have more choices and availability when it comes to getting into the classes they need.

“I strongly recommend [freshmen] participation in a first year program: a first year seminar such as GNST 21 or a learning community,” Meyer said. “Most importantly, I encourage students to engage in campus life. Get to know other students and their faculty.”