UC Irvine might demand more A’s

Marisa O’Neil

Students will need higher GPAs to get into UC schools in 2006 if

regents accept a plan to tighten academic standards for high school

seniors hoping to attend the system’s campuses.

The Academic Senate of the University of California this week

voted unanimously to recommend increasing eligibility requirements

for entering freshmen starting in 2005. That comes after a report

earlier this year that found the number of UC-eligible students is

exceeding recommended levels by nearly 2%.

According to the state’s Master Plan for Education, which outlines

higher education in California, the UC system should set its

standards so that 12.5% of the state’s graduating seniors are

eligible for admissions. A report released in May by the California

Postsecondary Education Commission said that in 2003, 14.4% were

eligible.

“Students are adjusting to the requirements,” said George

Blumenthal, vice chair of the academic senate. “We set the bar, and

they’re trying to get above the bar. As far as we’re concerned,

[current students are] all qualified to come to UC, and they’re

coming to UC and performing well. We’re not excluding them because

they shouldn’t be here, but because the Master Plan says we have to.”

If UC regents vote to accept the senate’s recommendation, students

applying for admissions in the fall of 2006 would need at least a 3.1

grade point average, not a 2.8 as they do now.

“It’s going to impact how well they perform,” said Jamie Wheeland,

a counselor at Newport Harbor High School. “It’s more of a GPA issue

[at Newport Harbor]. We have some students who are trying their

hardest to meet the minimum requirements to be eligible.”

Of those eligible for admissions, some will still have to meet the

higher standards set forth by individual campuses, like UC Irvine.

That campus is one of seven more-selective campuses in the system,

said Marguerite Bonous-Hammarth, director of admissions.

“[UCI has] had an increasingly competitive applicant pool and

tremendous interest from the local and statewide contingent of

students,” Bonous-Hammarth said.

The academic senate is also recommending that regents make sure

all students calculate their GPA based on all their eligible course

work for 10th and 11th grades, rather than just using their highest

grades. Wheeland said she already calculates GPAs like that for

students planning to apply for UC schools.

Raising the standards will send more students to community

colleges than before, Wheeland said. Thousands of UC-eligible

freshmen were redirected to community colleges for the 2004-05 year,

due to state budget problems.

Heather Kluss, who will be a senior at Costa Mesa High School next

year, is planning to apply to UCLA and UC Berkeley, two of the

system’s most competitive schools. She has well above the minimum

GPA, but said that if the eligibility standards are raised, the new

requirements need to be made clear to the students they will affect.

“In the schools, during freshman year, they’ll have to really

stress how important the standards will be,” Kluss said. “If really

important to [students], they’ll do everything in their power to get

above that.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.