High school students have more than a year to meet increased admissions standards passed by the Board of Regents Monday.
Regents President Raymond Sanchez said at the Board’s meeting that the regents will review the standards annually to make needed modifications.
Over a three-year period, students will be required to increase the minimum grade point average from 2.25 to 2.5 and college preparatory units from 13 to 16. The preparatory units include an additional social science, science course with a lab and a fourth-year math. The admissions standards go into effect fall 2011.
The Regents debated postponing the math requirement before passing it.
Regent Jack Fortner, who voted nay, proposed a motion to either delete or postpone the math requirement until 2014. Regent Jamie Koch seconded the motion, but it was denied.
The math requirement may make it more difficult for some to complete their degree, Fortner said.
“For those not going into a science field, like political science or law degree, that doesn’t make sense,” he said. “How is that trig or calculus going to help you in succeeding in those areas? It’s not.”
But if students don’t have access to the math requirement, they can take an additional unit from another area to meet the 16 units, said Terry Babbitt, associate vice president of Enrollment Management.
Rural schools have the biggest challenge with the math requirement, Babbitt said.
“It’s just a challenge when you have 15 seniors and you have an algebra II teacher,” he said. “A lot of times they’re not certified to teach trigonometry material or calculus, so we have to look for solutions there.”
Koch said the math requirement could hurt students from rural areas.
“When I look at that requirement, I think of Pecos, La Cuesta and Tierra Maria that just don’t have it at all and that requirement is not helpful to New Mexico,” he said.
On average, the fail rate for students in introductory college math courses is about 50 percent, Babbitt said. And about 38 percent of entering freshmen start off in a lower level of math, setting them behind in their intended graduation date.
Students will be admitted based on GPA and curriculum, even though they are still required to take a college entrance exam. If students have a low GPA, college entrance exam scores will then be considered.
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Minimum test scores weren’t proposed, Babbitt said, since it would affect a large pool of students.
“If we impose a minimum test score of even an 18 on an ACT, it would eliminate 400 freshmen and if we go to a 16 minimum, it was about 207,” he said.
The standards will also give students a weighted GPA, which takes into account rigorous high school classes like dual-enrollment and AP classes.
University President David Schmidly said results from national studies are in line with the admissions standards.
“National data shows the best predictor of success in college overall is what you took in high school and how well you did,” he said. “Both of those trump the test scores.”
Unprepared high school students end up dropping out of UNM, Regent Carolyn Abeita said.
“I see this as just one way to be able to kind of give them a head start, because the better prepared a student is when they come to the University, the more opportunities they have here,” she said.
