Our University is growing. The Flagship Agenda brings us more parking, better professors and a more beautiful campus. But those changes bring tough decisions to our administrators, including who will and will not become part of the student body. Admission standards may be raised in the coming years, a proposal most of us agree with. While some members of this board think it is too early to again raise admission standards, we all agree we want the best for LSU. Currently, students applying to the University need a 3.0 GPA and a 22 ACT score to ensure guaranteed admittance. The proposed admission standards would admit students based on more than just numbers. The new policy would factor in student involvement and the competitiveness of a student’s high school when deciding who will be admitted and consider admittance on an individual basis. “If this proposal is actually implemented, students would actually be looked at on a more individual basis and not as a number in a formula,” Student Government President Chris Odinet told The Daily Reveille. The majority of this board agrees admission standards should be raised. We want a well-rounded, highly successful student body – the kind of student body that will make this University our state’s best. But administrators should be cautious. Deciding who can gain admittance to the University on an individual basis is a noble idea, but a hard task for a campus of more than 30,000. Many of our state’s students are at a disadvantage, both academically and financially. The University needs to take this into consideration if it wants to make these admission changes. Our public high school systems are not among the nation’s best. According to an Associated Press report, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gave two states a failing grade for college preparation. Louisiana was one of the two. Potential students from low-income backgrounds and schools may not have had the opportunity for extracurricular involvement because many cannot afford to participate in these activities. Using extracurricular activities as a potential admissions factor could neglect borderline students who simply did not have the means to participate. We think that leaving these students out of our student body would be a disservice to our state. But we think our University can and should work to improve itself. Administrators, we ask you to be sensitive to our students’ needs and our University’s future if this new policy is enacted.
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