New University of California Admission Policy for the Class of 2012
Revised Freshman Admission Policy
Today the University of California Board of Regents approved a change to the University’s admission policy that will affect current high school students graduating in 2012 and beyond.
The new policy requires the same number of “a-g” courses and the same GPA as current policy. The key differences are:
- Two SAT Subject Tests will no longer be required for admission. However, students could still choose to submit their scores for consideration as part of their application, just as they do now with AP scores. The Subject Tests also could be recommended for certain majors.
- All applicants will need to complete 11 of the 15 “a-g” courses by the end of their junior year. Currently, this is required only of students who are designated eligible by ranking in the top 4 percent of their high school class.
All California high school seniors who complete the requirements will be invited to apply and will be entitled to a comprehensive review of their applications at each UC campus to which they apply.
Within this “entitled to review” pool, two categories of applicants would be guaranteed admission somewhere within the UC system:
- those who fall in the top 9 percent of all high school graduates statewide, and
- those who rank in the top 9 percent of their own high school graduating class.
Together, these students would make up about 10 percent of the state’s high school graduates. The remaining admissions needed to make up the full 12.5 percent pool of top students would be drawn from the broader “entitled to review” pool.
For now, we ask your help in conveying to your students two important messages:
- Fundamentally, these changes will not change the way students prepare for the University: students still need to complete the “a-g” requirements, earn the best grades possible, and take the ACT Assessment with Writing or the SAT Reasoning Test. They will also need content knowledge in case they choose to take an SAT Subject Test to demonstrate specific subject-matter proficiency.
- Students who graduate from high school prior to 2012 will be held to existing admissions requirements. Most importantly, this means that these students will be required to submit scores from two SAT Subject Tests in order to be eligible for admission, as is the case now.
The Board of Regents also voted today to adopt the Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan. Under the plan, undergraduates in their first four years of attendance at UC — or two for California Community College transfer students — will receive enough scholarship and grant assistance to at least fully cover their systemwide UC fees if they have income below the median for California households ($60,000) and meet other basic eligibility requirements for need-based financial aid. With the income cut-off set at the median income for California households, the plan will potentially extend to half of all California households.
The Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan establishes a minimum level of gift assistance for 48,100 eligible California-resident students. In addition to having their systemwide fees fully covered, eligible students with sufficient financial need will receive additional grant support to help defray other educational expenses such as books, housing, food and transportation costs, among others. In fact, UC currently provides grant and scholarship assistance averaging $10,300 per recipient to 54 percent of its undergraduates. The university also will continue to ensure that grant assistance covers at least half of the annual increase in systemwide fees for other financially needy undergraduates with household incomes between $60,000 and $100,000.
The Blue and Gold proposal represents a new step in UC's efforts to address the concern among many families, especially in periods of economic downturn, that pursuing a higher education might be out of their financial reach. Financial aid reduces the "sticker price" of higher education to a much lower "net price" for many students, and the Blue and Gold proposal seeks to make this fact more clear and understandable to families than ever before.
Last fall, all UC campuses launched interactive Web-based financial aid estimators that allow families and students to obtain information about UC's costs and ways to meet those costs specifically based on their unique financial circumstances, including their annual income, assets and family size. These estimators are available at www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/paying.html.
posted by College Counselor's Blog @ 10:29 AM
