The University’s admission standards were changed Thursday at an Oregon University System Strategic Planning Committee meeting at Oregon State University. However, the University’s GPA requirement will remain fixed at its goal of 3.25 for 2003-04 and the change to high school subject-areas requirement won’t take place until the 2004-05 school year.
For the University of Oregon, high school students must soon complete 16 required subject areas before admittance; the standard was previously set at 14. The committee made greater changes to admission standards of Portland State University and Oregon Institute of Technology. Both institutions will raise their minimum GPA requirements from 2.50 to 3.00, leaving Western Oregon University and Southern Oregon University as the two remaining OUS schools with minimum GPA requirements below 3.00.
OUS spokeswoman Diane Saunders said reasons for the admission changes varied from institution to institution, but that universities mainly wanted to update their standards to better fit profiles of incoming students.
Saunders added that increasing admission standards did not indicate that the board is attempting to curb enrollment in light of decreasing state funding.
“The board is far away from determining whether something like that is necessary,” she said. “Something nobody wants to do is limit access.”
She said the board is currently in the information gathering stage of weighing the positive and negative affects of limiting enrollment. While the board recognizes that educational quality could be harmed with increased enrollment and decreased state funding, it also wants to assess how students will be harmed by limiting access.

— Jan Montry