Students entering the University in 2010 will be automatically admitted if they have a 3.4 grade point average, up from the current 3.25. Admissions officials said the change, which was approved by the Oregon State Board of Higher Education on Friday, is intended to allow factors beyond grades and test scores to be considered in the admissions process.
The change allows any high school student applying for admission with 3.4 GPA or higher to automatically earn a place at the University without submitting an essay or additional materials. Brian Henley, director of admissions, stressed that the change only applies for automatic admission; the minimum requirement for admission remains a 3.0 GPA.
Henley said that in the freshman class entering the University in fall 2008, nearly 70 percent of students were admitted automatically. Had the requirement been 3.4, only 56 percent would have been.
Henley said the switch could bring greater diversity to the University. When more than 2/3 of an incoming class is admitted on grades alone, he said, it leaves very little room for “comprehensive review,” in which admissions officials also consider such factors as a student’s essay, ethnicity and socioeconomic background.
When this process is used, the University can bring in more diverse students, Henley said.
But members of the student program MEChA had doubts about the policy increasing diversity.
University senior Maya Esparza said raising the GPA requirement to increase diversity is “completely counterintuitive.” She said even if the University doesn’t intend it, becoming more selective inherently excludes minority groups, which statistically perform below more privileged groups.
Eugene School District assessment specialist Jim Conaghan said Henley’s rationale for the change might be hard to execute.
“By raising it, if it allows for them to put more of a focus on kids from different backgrounds, I think that’s great,” he said. But he said many high school students don’t report their free-and-reduced-lunch statuses, the primary standard by which economic status is judged. Socioeconomic information is more private than ethnic identity, Conaghan said. “It’s not a publicly identifiable thing.”
Henley said the University has several criteria for evaluating applicants’ economic backgrounds. The application asks students if they are the first in their family to attend college, and the committee also looks at the essay, a statement of special circumstances and whether the student needed an application fee deferral.
Junior Jill Torres, another member of MEChA, said if the University wants to increase diversity, it ought to focus on retention of minority groups instead of admissions. Latino students who are admitted don’t necessarily stay, she said. Many drop out by the end of their first term, she said, noting that if the University can’t keep students of color on campus, admitting more will make no difference.
Torres and Esparza said they were speaking for themselves and not on behalf of MEChA.
The new automatic admissions threshold is decidedly higher than any other in the Oregon University System. The threshold at Eastern Oregon University, Oregon State University and Portland State University is a 3.00 GPA.
Senior Nick Dahlen entered college with a 3.3 GPA, which guaranteed him automatic enrollment but wouldn’t if he applied next year. Dahlen said he had worked hard in high school and felt prepared for classwork at the University, with the possible exception of writing class. He said he could understand the change, given the University’s recent over-enrollment of its freshman class and the need to weed out more applicants to avoid a similar situation next year.
Graduate teaching fellow Sara Keilholtz, who teaches Writing 121, said she sees a wide range of abilities in freshman students, even though the majority were automatically admitted. In fact, students who did well in high school often struggle more in her class because they are accustomed to succeeding and are not as open to criticism as are students who graduated high school with lower GPAs, she said.
Henley said the ultimate goal of the threshold change is to provide more flexibility in the application review process, rather than cause administrators to be tied to GPAs alone.
The University wants to enroll the best class possible, and that may not stop at grades, Henley said. “Ultimately, we want to enroll a class that brings diverse perspectives.”
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