The Board of Regents passed its revised Admissions Policy in 1996, with a goal of phased-in implementation at its 34 colleges and universities beginning in Fall 1997 through Fall 2001. All four goals are on target, including no substantial decrease in the percentage of African-American students. The percentage of African-American traditional freshmen enrolled in the University System of Georgia totaled 24 percent in Fiscal Year 1996 and 23 percent in FY 1999. The second half of this process will be even tougher than the first, because we must focus even harder on the poorest prepared students. The board's 2001 admissions standards set in place higher standards for traditional freshmen and transfer students.
Standards are more flexible for students who have been out of high school more than five years.
In addition, students will be evaluated according to their freshman index, which is comprised of their high-school grade point average and ACT or SAT standardized tests score. Traditional freshmen without the mandatory college-prep curriculum or who require learning support courses no longer will be admitted to the System's research, regional or state universities. Learning support courses, for those students who still require such support, will be concentrated in the University System's two-year colleges, which will serve as the point of access into the System. Students who succeed at the two-year colleges may then transfer on to a university, aided by enhanced transfer policies also implemented as a component of the revised admissions requirements. Our challenges are to communicate continually our new requirements to future students and to monitor the results diligently, looking for danger signs of any potentially adverse impact of the policy.