Some Transfers May Be Denied Entry to SDSU

Faced with still another year of overcrowding that is taxing gyms, libraries and other facilities, San Diego State University probably will not accept freshman and sophomore transfer students, most of whom come from community colleges, in the fall of 1988, officials said Wednesday.

The move would reduce the number of applicants for spots at the California State University system’s largest campus by about 3,600 and decrease the number of students by an estimated 1,500, according to an analysis conducted by the university.

Albert Johnson, SDSU’s vice president for academic affairs, said university President Thomas Day is close to making a decision on the cutback and is likely to approve it.

State Rejected Plan

In a potentially more controversial move, SDSU earlier this summer asked for permission to tighten eligibility standards for all freshman applicants next fall but was turned down in recent weeks by CSU Chancellor Ann Reynolds, Johnson said.

Under the state’s Master Plan for Higher Education, SDSU and the 18 other CSU system schools are required to accept all students in the top 33% of high school graduating classes. SDSU had sought to require a slightly higher level of performance--as measured by high school grade-point average and standardized college entrance test scores--to cut back the number of students at the College Avenue campus.

Enrollment figures for this fall are not yet available but officials are hoping they will be down about 1,000 from last year’s record of 34,677, said Nancy Sprotte, SDSU’s director of admissions. To accomplish that, SDSU sharply limited the application period for freshmen and transfers last year.

North Campus No Help

The opening of a new SDSU campus in San Marcos, scheduled for 1992 or 1993, is not expected to lessen overcrowding at the main campus significantly, Johnson said.

The overcrowding is being felt in places such as the library, which is 94,000 square feet short of adequate size, according to CSU formulas, and the athletic facilities, which were built for 16,000 people.

Projections show that SDSU can expect a continued rise in the number of freshman applicants, which jumped from 11,026 for the 1986 entering class to 14,314 for this fall’s class, Sprotte said.

“We hate to deny access to anybody. But when you have to balance limited resources against the demand, we have to deny access to some people,” she said.

SDSU already restricts enrollment in certain popular programs, including business administration, nursing, electrical engineering, aeronautical engineering and telecommunications and film. Reynolds has suggested that the school consider restricting additional programs, Johnson said.