UC Faculty Backs Hike in Entry Standards

Prompted by a recent study showing that too many students are meeting existing requirements, the faculty of the University of California voted Wednesday to raise the minimum eligibility standards for the prestigious university system.

The proposed changes, which include raising the minimum grade-point average for UC-eligible students from 2.8 to 3.1, were endorsed overwhelmingly by the university’s Academic Assembly in a conference call. UC’s Board of Regents is expected to vote on the proposal later this month.

Under the 1960 master plan for the state’s colleges and universities, UC has been expected to draw its students from the top eighth -- or 12.5% -- of California’s high school graduates, while the California State University system has been drawn from the top third.

But a study released in May found that UC was overshooting its target, with 14.4% of the state’s high school graduates last year meeting the university’s minimum requirements.

The faculty now proposes raising that bar, recommending a three-year plan that would change the way students’ grade-point averages are calculated and increase the minimum GPA required to become eligible (To be admitted to UC, applicants also typically must meet separate -- often much higher -- standards imposed by the campuses at which they seek to enroll.)

Lawrence Pitts, UC’s top faculty representative, said the eligibility revisions were prompted by the recent study and the state’s budget crisis, which this year forced the university for the first time to turn away eligible students.

“All of this is painful, but it’s what we have to do to abide by the master plan,” Pitts said.

Under the proposed changes, UC applicants, starting in fall 2005, would calculate their grade-point average based on all UC-required courses taken in their sophomore and junior years. Most campuses are already doing this, faculty representatives said, but UC’s official policy has allowed the figure to be based on the student’s eight best grades for those years.

The proposal’s most significant change, raising the minimum required GPA to 3.1 on a four-point scale, would be delayed two years, taking effect for students entering UC in the fall of 2007.

“We wanted to give students and schools time to adjust on that one,” said Barbara Sawrey, a UC San Diego professor who heads a faculty committee that made the recommendations.

She and other faculty members said they do not believe the changes would severely affect the number of students who enroll at the university. Most UC students have qualifications well above the minimum standards, they said.

Several high school counselors, however, said the new standards, if approved by the regents, would likely increase anxiety for students considering applying to UC. Loretta Hultman, a college counselor for Roosevelt High in East Los Angeles, said she realizes that the UC system is under pressure to tighten its eligibility rules, but is nevertheless saddened by the proposal.

At her school, where most students come from immigrant families and those who head to college are often the first in their families to do so, the rising admissions standards at many UC campuses already have been a major concern, Hultman said.

If the proposal is adopted, she said, “I’m concerned that my students will feel that the state is less accepting of them going on to college, that they’ll start to feel that the doors are closing.”

But Harold Soo Hoo, a counselor in the magnet program at San Fernando High School, expressed support for tightening standards for UC applicants. “Now that we have more and more students achieving at that 2.8 level, UC can’t admit them all,” he said.

Educators, the counselor said, need to try “to help people realize it is a competitive world out there, and it’s something [students] should be very much aware of from the very beginning. To get into the top programs in our state ... is going to require a lot of work.”