This is interesting news. I hope it means they have raised admission standards to raise the quality of the lower percentile of the student body.
As for in state enrollment, I have been troubled by the decline in in-state enrollment for a while now. If you look at which high schools are feeding UA the most students, you can see that Auburn has been significantly out-recruiting in state students from well populated areas like Huntsville, Jefferson and Shelby County and Baldwin county. For example, I see that no students from one of the state’s top schools, Spanish Fort, enrolled last Fall at UA. Maybe someone mistakenly left it off of the list of feeder schools. Does anyone know if there were really no students from Spanish Fort who enrolled at UA last Fall?
Regardless, UA must be admitting a large number of both in state and out of state elite (ACT of 31 or greater) high school students given that the quality of its upper percentile has dramatically improved over the last few years.
Check out these links to compare UA and Auburn’s relative success in attracting in state students:
https://web.auburn.edu/ir/factbook/enrollment/newstudents/soafmfhs.aspx