SECTION A (Virginia is for ... automatic admissions?)
In December, Del. David Poisson, D-Sterling, introduced House Bill 165 to the Virginia General Assembly, proposing automatic acceptance for qualifying in-state students to any state-run institution of higher education in Virginia.
To become eligible for automatic acceptance, the original bill stated, a student must be a resident of Virginia, attend a public or private high school in the commonwealth, place in the top 10 percent of his or her class and complete 320 hours of community service the semester before applying to college.
Poisson said he included the 320 hours of community service because there are 32 weeks in a typical high school semester, explaining that he believed 10 hours a week seemed sufficient.
"What we intended to say to young people in Virginia is that if you do well and if you give back to your community before you're admitted, you have the right to get [into these schools]," Poisson said.
Poisson said he amended the class rank requirement to include the top 5 percent of one's class and removed the University, Virginia Tech and the College of William & Mary from the proposal. He noted he also added a provision by which students in the automatic admission pool could only apply to three of the participating in-state universities.
Despite these alterations, Poisson said the bill was tabled by the House Higher Education Subcommittee in early January.
"Unfortunately it did not advance as far as I hoped it would," Poisson said, adding that he intends to re-introduce the bill next year.
While many of Poisson's colleagues claim that the current admissions system rewards students who excel academically and give back to their community, Poisson said the process lacks transparency.
"It's not being done in any way that's public," Poisson said. "I still believe that there should be a place in our admissions process that says this process can be yours and yours alone if you give back to your community."
Although HB 165 failed to become law in Virginia, similar legislation is in effect in Texas, California and Florida.
SECTION B (Texas takes on guaranteed admissions)
Perhaps one of the most well-known of these systems is Texas' "Top Ten Percent Law" of 1997. The law's only requirement is that a student must place in the top 10 percent of his or her high school's graduating class to qualify for automatic acceptance to any state college or university.
Augustine Garza, admissions deputy director at the University of Texas at Austin, said the Top Ten Percent Law has had a major impact on diversity at her university.
"We have taken advantage of the system by taking the message into urban and rural areas," Garza said. "Everybody is on a level playing field no matter what race [they] are or what high school [they] come from."
Garza added that the law has increased competition among those who do not qualify for the program.
"We only have so many spots, and because acceptance for top-10 percenters is mandatory, the number of spaces for those not in the top 10 percent has decreased," Garza said. "As a consequence, the competition for non-top-10 percenters has really increased."
According to Garza, the standardized testing scores of non-qualifying students are higher than the scores of those who qualify.
While Garza believes that the 10 percent program has worked effectively at the University of Texas at Austin, he noted it may not have the same effect at a university such as the University of Virginia.
"At the University [of Virginia], you have a lot of non-residents," Garza said. "A similar plan might increase diversity, like at Texas, but decrease the number of spots for non-residents."
Garza also said having fewer out-of-state students often translates into less money for an institution.
"The other question is how a decrease in non-residents will affect the school's income, since out-of-state students are usually a major source [of revenue]," Garza said. "It really depends on what the University wants to do -- if you want to grow, it might be a good plan, but you need to look at the implications for non-residents and [school] income."
Currently, the commonwealth requires in-state residents to constitute about 70 percent of each incoming class at the University.
"We'll take 67.33 percent of our class from Virginia," Dean of Admissions John Blackburn said. "[We have] a clear understanding with the state government ... We look at the whole state and try to admit the most qualified [students]."
SECTION C (California's creative solution)
California has also implemented a law similar to HB 165, with a top 4 percent requirement and stratified placement at state schools.
According to University of California spokesperson Ricardo Vazquez, California's Four Percent Plan, which first took effect for the University of California's graduating class of 2005, aimed to ensure access to high-performing students in all areas of the state regardless of the opportunities afforded to them in high school.
The goal was to "broaden access to the university and increase the pool of applicants [from] high schools that traditionally have not sent a lot of students to UC," Vazquez said
According to Vazquez, the California system is a multi-step process, while the Texas system is more straightforward. According to Vazquez, high school students must maintain a certain grade point average in a minimum of 15 college preparatory courses before taking the SAT reasoning and two subject tests to qualify for the program.
"If they meet those requirements, we make every effort to place them at one of the campuses, but not necessarily at the campus of their choice," Vazquez said.
The most selective institutions under the University of California system, UCLA and Berkeley, have more control over the students they admit through the Four Percent Plan, Vazquez said. Because of increased competition, they do not necessarily accept every applicant from the Four Percent Plan, adding a comprehensive review of a student's full application before making a decision.
Although Vazquez said the system "has definitely had a positive effect," he said what works in California may not work in Virginia.
"The situation might be different in every state," Vazquez said.
SECTION D (Déjà vu for Virginia)
HB 165 is not the first bill legislators have tried to use to initiate an automatic qualification system in the commonwealth.
"Every year there's at least one bill like this for guaranteed admission and they are usually voted down," Blackburn said, adding that such a bill could disadvantage students who take more rigorous classes, such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses. This type of bill also would not assess students as comprehensively as the current admissions process does, he added.
"The issue comes down to how we consider students," Blackburn said. "We consider much more than just a class rank."
Blackburn said he believes a guaranteed admissions system will not be a valid possibility in the future.
"I think there are some very good people in our legislature who understand how colleges operate," Blackburn said. "They want to deal with issues that are most important to the state."
Despite the opinions of those such as Blackburn and a number of Virginia legislators, Poisson said the issue of guaranteed admissions is important to the state and its constituents, adding that he has "talked to enough parents who think I should continue to press on"
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