<p>I don't know if this is the right place for this info so if I am wrong, please feel free to move it. Out here in California, it is simply one of the worse years to be applying to college. Practically every other week the regents/chancellors are raising fees and tightening admissions even further. There have been protests on the various campuses throughout the state. California parents such as ourselves have strongly been encouraging our children to apply outside of California. Yesterday we received the email listed below from our h.s. college counselor informing us of the latest admission changes for CSU schools:</p>
<p>"Hello Seniors and Parents,
As you know there has been a lot of media coverage about San Diego State and the CSU system admission policies this year. I have waited until now to contact you about this, as I needed to gather more information. I now have that data, and want to inform you of the following. SDSU and eleven other CSU campuses are considered impacted and therefore will be more difficult in terms of admissions. The others are Chico, San Francisco, San Jose, Northridge, Pomona, Fullerton, Long Beach, San Marcos, Fresno, and Sonoma. If any of these schools are on your list, I strongly recommend that you have a back up plan of an application to a CSU that is not impacted if your gpa is under 3.1 For SDSU, the restrictions will be even tighter, although there will still be some local preference given, but if students are under 3.3, it will be difficult. At SDSU, students must also select a major in order to be admitted. It has become even more important that students get their CSU applications in sooner rather than later, and that they have backups."</p>
<p>CSU schools have long been considered great schools for those students with GPAs 3.0 and below which I believe is 50% of my DS's class. Looking at last year's numbers for the 2009 class at my DS's school, 38 of the students (approximately 25% of the class) went to the impacted CSU schools. I am sure many of them were 3.1 and below. Here in CA, I believe these students are left with few options, They can try to get into small LACs but those bring high costs, they can try for out-of-state schools but those have high out of state tuition, or they can go to community college which really isn't an option. Community colleges are impacted worse that the CSU and they are turning students away and if you get accepted it takes more than 2 years to get an AA which further raises the costs. </p>
<p>I guess the lesson is try really hard to have good grades above 3.1 so that you have more options. I used to think education was possible for everyone but this makes me very sad for this years class of 2010.</p>