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UC Academic Senate Proposes Changes to Freshman Eligibility

The UC Board of Regents will consider early in 2009 a proposal to change freshman admission to give more high-achieving students the chance to apply to UC and receive a full review of their applications. If adopted, the new rules would take effect for the fall 2012 entering class.

The Academic Senate proposed the changes to address concerns that current policy prevents UC from considering thousands of outstanding students with high GPAs and test scores just because of a technical flaw in their record or a missing test – chiefly, the SAT Subject Tests, which are not required by any other public university in the country.

Proposal highlights

Under the version of the proposal expected to be presented by UC President Mark Yudof, all California high school seniors who…

complete the 15 UC-required college-preparatory ("a-g") courses, with 11 of those done by the end of 11th grade,
maintain a GPA of 3.0 or better (weighted by honors/AP bonus points) in these courses, and
take the ACT with Writing or SAT Reasoning Test

…would be invited to apply and would be entitled to a comprehensive review of their applications at each UC campus to which they apply.

Within this "entitled to review" pool, two categories of applicants would be guaranteed admission somewhere within the UC system:

those who fall in the top 9% of all high school graduates statewide, and
those who rank in the top 9% of their own high school graduating class.

Together, these students would make up about 10% of the state's high school graduates. If these students are not admitted to one of the campuses they applied to, they would be referred to a campus with remaining space (currently UC Riverside or UC Merced) and offered admission there, as eligible students are now. The remaining admissions needed to make up the full 12.5% pool of top students would be drawn from the broader "entitled to review" pool.

All qualified students, whether receiving the referral guarantee or not, would have their applications reviewed comprehensively by all UC campuses to which they apply and would compete for those seats. Their qualifications would be assessed using the same campus-based review processes currently in place – ones that emphasize academic achievement, but that also account for a wide range of personal accomplishments and educational contexts.

Differences from current policy

The proposal would require the same number of "a-g" courses and the same GPA as current policy. What is different is:

Two SAT Subject Tests would no longer be required for admission. However, students could still choose to submit their scores for consideration as part of their application, just as they do now with AP scores. The Subject Tests also could be recommended for certain majors.
All applicants would need to complete 11 of the 15 "a-g" courses by the end of their junior year. Currently, this is required only of students who are designated eligible by ranking in the top 4% of their high school class.
The share of students who are guaranteed admission based on their rank in their own high school class would grow (9% vs. the current 4%).
Fewer students overall would receive an admission guarantee (10% of high school graduates statewide vs. 12.5% now), but nearly all students who would have received this guarantee under current policy would still be entitled to a full review by their campuses of choice under the new proposal.