UC Regents Adopt Changes to Freshman Admissions Policy

The UC Board of Regents in February 2009 adopted a proposal to change freshman admission to give more high-achieving students the chance to apply to UC and receive a full review of their applications. The new rules will take effect for the fall 2012 entering class.
The Academic Senate proposed the changes to address concerns that current policy prevents UC from considering thousands of outstanding students with high GPAs and test scores just because of a technical flaw in their record or a missing test – chiefly, the SAT Subject Tests, which are not required by any other public university in the country.

Policy highlights

Under the new policy, all California high school seniors who…

• complete the 15 UC-required college-preparatory ("a-g") courses, with 11 of those done by the end of 11th grade,
• maintain a GPA of 3.0 or better (weighted by honors/AP bonus points) in these courses, and
• take the ACT with Writing or SAT Reasoning Test

…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 will be guaranteed admission somewhere within the UC system:

• those who fall in the top 9% of all high school graduates statewide, and
• those who rank in the top 9% of their own high school graduating class.

Together, these students are expected to make up about 10% of the state's high school graduates. If these students are not admitted to one of the campuses they applied to, they will be referred to a campus with remaining space (currently UC Riverside or UC Merced) and offered admission there, as eligible students are now. The remaining admissions needed to make up the full 12.5% pool of top students will be drawn from the broader "entitled to review" pool.
All qualified students, whether receiving the referral guarantee or not, will have their applications reviewed comprehensively by all UC campuses to which they apply and will compete for those seats. Their qualifications will be assessed using the same campus-based review processes currently in place – ones that emphasize academic achievement, but that also account for a wide range of personal accomplishments and educational contexts. More information about the comprehensive review process is available at How UC Reviews Applicants.

Differences from current policy

The new policy requires the same number of "a-g" courses and the same GPA as current policy. What is different is:

• Two SAT Subject Tests will no longer be required for admission. However, students can 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 may 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% of their high school class.
• The share of students who are guaranteed admission based on their rank in their own high school class will grow (9% vs. the current 4%).
• Fewer students overall will receive an admission guarantee (10% of high school graduates statewide vs. 12.5% now), but nearly all students who would have received this guarantee under current policy will still be entitled to a full review by their campuses of choice under the new proposal.