San Jose State University joined Cal State Long Beach announcing plans to raise admission requirements for local students starting in fall 2013.
Both campuses expect statewide administrators to approve their respective plans to toughen admissions guidelines for local students sometime this week.
If SJSU’s plan is approved, it will shift to a local-area preference, rather than a guaranteed admission. The proposal increases the GPA requirement above the Cal State University minimum of a 2.0, but for applicants outside of the local area, the requirement will be higher, according to The Spartan Daily.
CSULB, meanwhile, would adjust the minimum course requirements for local student admission and change the definition of a local student, but keep their GPA-based guarantee in place.
“We want [students] to know what their expectations are to transfer,” said Donald Para, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs.
CSULB will follow through with its Long Beach Promise, an initiative signed in March 2008 that guarantees admission for Long Beach Unified School District high school students and Long Beach City College students who meet minimum CSU and CSULB admission requirements in non-impacted programs, according to longbeachpromise.org.
The other main change in the proposal would use a student’s high school, rather than junior college, to determine whether they are local.
Currently, a student who transfers from LBCC, Orange Coast College, Coastline Community College or Golden West College is considered local.
“In the plan, it’s about where a student graduates from high school,” Para said. “It will change the definition for community colleges. LBCC will be the only local community college [still eligible] but the students’ high school of origin is going to be what determines [eligibility].”
Though SJSU will end its local guarantee, it will still give preference to locals. As it stands, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is the only CSU campus that does not have some form of a local guarantee or preference in place, according to Para.
In fall 2011, CSULB received 5,266 local freshmen applications and 79 percent were offered admission, while 52 percent of 2,432 local transfer applications were offered admission. With the number of applicants increasing, administrators said it was necessary to increase competition accordingly.