CSUN, Full for Spring, Cuts Off Applications

Already overenrolled and faced with an unprecedented number of applications for the spring semester, California State University, Northridge, on Friday stopped accepting undergraduate applications for the semester.

The cutoff of applications occurred three weeks earlier than in recent years and was the earliest cutoff school officials could recall.

Graduate applications are still being accepted.

University officials attributed the surge of applications at the campus, which has 28,872 students, to several factors.

Overenrollment in recent years at UCLA has led students turned down at that school to apply to the Northridge campus, said Mary Baxton, associate director of admissions at CSUN.

Also, fewer students are electing to go to community colleges before transferring to a four-year college, Baxton said.

Bypassing Community Colleges

“Community colleges are not held in high regard by many students at this time,” she said, “so they want to come right here after high school, or transfer out of a community college before completing two years, as was the practice in the past.”

In addition, the rising cost of private colleges is forcing more students who grew up in the San Fernando Valley to stay at home for college, she said.

Baxton said CSUN also has become popular with students from central Los Angeles, especially those wanting to major in business administration, computer science and engineering.

Those students are choosing the Valley school over California State University, Dominguez Hills and Cal State L.A., both of which are closer to their homes, “because of the university’s increasingly good reputation in those areas,” she said.

Steve Adams, CSUN assistant director of public affairs, said residential growth in the Conejo, Simi and Santa Clarita valleys also is a factor in the rising student enrollment.

“More and more we see students from those areas on campus,” he said.

Baxton said rising enrollment in recent years has forced the university to designate as “impacted” four majors--business administration, computer science, engineering and physical therapy--in order to reduce enrollment.

The designation means that the majors are open only to California residents and that admission requirements are higher than for students applying for admission in other fields or without a designated major.

Another Major Nearly Full

Baxton said the university’s major in radio, television and film is close to being declared fully enrolled.

Enrollment at the campus is about 1,000 more than the university’s target level, Baxton said.

The university expects about 50% of the 3,866 who applied before the cutoff to be enrolled when classes begin Jan. 21, she said. It was the largest number of applications ever received for spring semester, although more are received for enrollment at the start of the school year.

The number of new students is expected to equal the number who drop out, flunk out or graduate at midyear, leaving spring enrollment about the same as now, Baxton said.