More Bad News for CSU Applicants

Every year, students from California and across the U.S. apply to CSU campuses all over the Golden State. But thanks to the ongoing financial crisis, this year's high school seniors may find it tough or even impossible to gain admission to CSU campuses that are outside their local area.  

A message from the Director of Student Outreach and Recruitment Services at CSU Northridge landed in my inbox yesterday, bearing the bad news that Northridge is being forced to revise its admissions criteria and will now give priority admission to "those students who attend high school in a closely-defined geographical area, the local guarantee admission area or Tier I school districts, and meet the CSU eligibility index...Students graduating from a California high school located in an area outside CSUN's local admissions area--Tier II school districts--will be reviewed and rank-ordered using the CSU Eligibility Index which is based upon high school GPA and SAT/ACT scores." Unfortunately, there is a possibility that CSUN may be unable to admit all students from Tier II who are eligible; the university is advising students to consider applying to other CSU campuses. 

This development is just one more example of how the current budget crisis may impact student options for college admissions in the coming years. While the best plan is always to apply broadly to a range of "best fit" schools, students may now have a smaller pool from which to create their lists of "likely", "target", and "reach" colleges and universities. For those who plan to attend a CSU campus, their acceptance letters may end up keeping them much closer to home than they'd planned. 

More information and a list of CSU campuses still accepting applications from freshman can be found at CSU Mentor.