Cal State Long Beach administrators plan to present their new admission guidelines to the Cal State University Chancellor’s Office in the coming week, after holding the last of three public meetings on the topic Wednesday.
The hearing at Long Beach City College further discussed proposed changes to admission guidelines that would go into effect for the 2013-14 academic year.
The main changes include requiring more major-specific preparation, adjusting the minimum criteria for local student admission, changing the definition of a local student and offering holistic review of applications for students with special circumstances.
The changes would only apply to the CSULB campus.
“If President Alexander approves the plan, we will provide a proposal and next week to our CSU Chancellor’s Office,” David Dowell, vice provost for planning and budget and director of strategic planning at CSULB, said via email.
According to Dowell, all input is being considered in crafting the final proposal. In addition to the hearings, the public has been able to make comments online.
The Chancellor’s Office expects to take about a month to review the proposal and possibly approve it, he said.
Dowell said that changes to local priority admissions will benefit most LBCC students.
Under the proposed guidelines, local transfer students would be automatically admitted to any program at CSULB if they meet the minimum requirements for that specific department.
Under current practices, local transfer students do not get any priority when they apply to impacted programs, only non-impacted.
“This is a significant gain in access for LBCC students,” Dowell said.
The proposed revisions also include changing the definition of a local transfer student. Currently, a student who transfers from LBCC, Orange Coast College, Coastline Community College or Golden West College is considered local. The new definition would be based on high school of origin.
The change would mean that some LBCC students who are considered local under current guidelines would not be under the new ones. Dowell maintained that overall, LBCC students would benefit, because the change would not affect most students at the college.
“We really believe that there is going to be less of a disparity in admission [between local and non-local students],” Tom Enders, associate vice president of enrollment services said.
Prior to the hearing, LBCC President Eloy Ortiz Oakley expressed why he felt it was important to hold a public meeting on the campus.
“LBCC is hosting one of the hearings because we feel that our students and community need to hear and understand why the changes are being proposed at CSULB and how it would impact our students,” he said.