The University of California (UC) public university system is scheduled to alter many of its application requirements to make eligibility easier for applying students. These changes will affect members of the high school graduating class of 2012.
According to the UC faculty newspaper, The Senate Source, the new program, “Entitled to Review” (ETR), is meant to “broaden the pool of freshmen applicants visible to UC campuses.” ETR will work in accordance with the existing application review practices unique to each school.
Among the changes to be made in policy, the current requirement for SAT IIs will no longer be enforced for most applicants. According to College/Career Center Coordinator Kristin Joseph, a few of the offered majors at the eight UC schools may require certain SAT IIs to be taken, but there will not longer be the blanket “two SAT II” prerequisite for all applicants.
In addition, there will be a new eligibility referral guarantee system. As it stands now, there are guaranteed spots in the UC system for 12 percent of the California graduating class. These spots are held for students who have completed the required “A-G” courses, completed either their SAT with SAT IIs or the ACT plus writing and achieved a minimum score on a performance index based on those tests and their GPA. The number of guaranteed spots will be lowered to nine percent of the graduating class. This is intended to open up admissions to more students.
“[ETR] is a good idea because it gives kids from all walks of life better opportunities,” junior Olivia Hunter said. “But at the same time the fact that it won’t be set until 2012 doesn’t help kids that have already [applied].”
The ETR system is meant to make more students subject to a “full review.” In this way, admission will be given “primarily” based on academic achievement, which will be based on multiple sources of evidence that will take into consideration the circumstances surrounding those achievements. Some of these circumstances include the socio-economic class of the student, the size of the graduating class, etc.
“There is no doubt this is going to have some impact,” Joseph said. “With the whole process being revamped, it’s going to really affect admissions. But even though they’re closing some areas, they’ll be opening other areas [in the admission process]. We’ll just have to wait and see.”