At least six Virginia public universities are increasing guaranteed admission to high school seniors due to a decline in enrollment, including Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), George Mason University (GMU), and Norfolk State University (NSU). NSU has offered guaranteed admission since 2021, while VCU has recently implemented this admissions offering not just for Virginians, but nationwide. Each university has different criteria for students to become eligible for this admission offering. For example, students applying to VCU must have a 3.5 grade point average (GPA) or higher or must be in the top 10 percent of their graduating class. “I feel like there’s a gray area for who should ‘deserve’ this top 10 percent because not everyone, for example, does the IB diploma and they get all A’s but their GPA isn’t as high as everyone else’s. They’re still very smart people but even then I don’t think people should automatically qualify,” said senior Rachel Earl.
According to an article written by the Virginia Mercury, universities offering similar admissions programs to the one stated are the University of Virginia’s (UVA) College at Wise, Virginia Military Institute (VMI), and Radford University. UVA at Wise requires students to have maintained a 3.0 GPA (a minimum 2.0 GPA) and to be within the top 50 percent of their graduating class. Students who attend military high schools within the area, that have completed Algebra II, maintained a 3.25 GPA, and have had a leadership role in corp of cadets at their school, are guaranteed admission to VMI. Similarly, Radford University requires students to have completed Algebra II and maintained a 3.3 GPA. Old Dominion University (ODU) is currently working on a similar admissions offering, but details haven’t been released yet. Earl stated, “I think it’s [guaranteed admission] a bit unfair to those who work really hard on their applications and people that work hard on their personal essays just to get into some of these schools, and other people don’t have to work as hard to get into that specific school.”
The college application experience is a lengthy process which takes time and effort and added to this, guaranteed admission can be both an advantage and drawback. Senior Shea Murillo mentioned, “my college application experience has been good, but a little stressful. I think that it’s very important to keep your work ethics correct throughout all of high school, but after some research I learned that guaranteed admission is sometimes location based. If this is the case, then I think this strategy should be slightly altered for a more broad range of students.” With online research, the news of guaranteed admission is uncommonly found; there’s usually more information about guaranteed admission for transfer students rather than first-year applicants. Over the next few years, guaranteed admission offerings will become more prevalent and may benefit both universities and those who apply to them.
Uncontrollable factors such as where someone has lived can affect their college admissions process. “Some of these schools participating in guaranteed admission are schools that I’ve applied to and I did work hard on the application and the supplementals for these schools,” Earl shared. “I feel like guaranteed admission is not fair because, in my personal experience, I lived in Scotland through most of high school, so my grades don’t have the same weight as the grades here [at Robinson]. Although my grades are pretty good, my GPA is lower than a lot of my other friends that have the same grades as I do because I went to a different school, so I don’t get the same opportunity to get into that top 10 percent because of where I live. Schools without any AP, IB, or honors opportunities can negatively affect students’ GPA; not all students have control over where they’ve resided and what school district they’re placed in.
With the new surge of guaranteed admission in Virginia, one can anticipate what the future of what the college application process might look like across the nation. In fact, Sonoma State University in northern California is offering guaranteed admission to students who have completed required courses and maintained a minimum 2.5 GPA. Additionally, Common Application has implemented a direct admission program to 70 colleges within 28 states. The future of college admissions is developing and headed towards a new direction.
