Sacramento Bee: UC, CSU wait-listing students for the first time

[marmar]

UC, CSU wait-listing students for the first time

By Laurel Rosenhall
[e-mail]

Published: Saturday, Apr. 3, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A


California's public universities are using waiting lists this year for the first time, telling some top-notch students to wait two more months before they find out if they're in.

The practice – long common at selective private colleges – is yet another fallout from the state's budget crisis, as the University of California and California State University look for ways to trim enrollment in response to last year's historic funding cuts.

The public universities want to admit as many students as the state funds them for – but not a single person more. Waiting lists allow campuses to fine-tune the process so they hit their enrollment targets right on the mark.

"This gives them the opportunity to take additional students if it turns out they have a little bit of space at the end of the (admissions) process," said Susan Wilbur, UC's director of undergraduate admissions.

The UC system received a record number of applications this year: 134,029. The same is true at CSU, where more than 609,000 students applied by Nov. 30 – a record for the system. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/03/2652551/uc-csu-wait-listing-students-for.html

[mike_c]

1. all CSU campuses have been order to REDUCE admissions by six percent...

...this year. The irony is that my campus has been dinged financially by the CSU system during the last five or six years for not meeting it's enrollment targets, but last year we way exceeded them-- only to be told that we not only cannot accept the extra students, we must CUT enrollment below the level the state was already penalizing us for. As a consequence, we lose even more funding.

Gotta fill those prisons, though!