Kansas University is much stricter than other regents institutions when it comes to enforcing the state’s qualified admissions policy, according to a report presented Thursday to the Kansas Board of Regents.

The policy, which went into effect in fall 2001, allows each of the state’s six public universities to admit up to 10 percent of students who don’t meet the new standards.

But KU has used that leeway less often than any of the regents institutions in 2001 and 2002 combined  admitting just 47 students, or 0.57 percent of those who didn’t qualify, the report indicates.

“What we are concerned with is to admit students through the exceptions process whom we believe have a genuinely good chance to succeed academically at KU,” said Jim Carothers, associate vice provost for academic services. “That 0.57 number suggests we could have admitted almost 20 times the number of students we actually admitted through this process.”

The state’s policy requires Kansas high school students who wish to attend the state’s public universities to score a composite of 21 or above on their ACT, rank in the top one-third of their high school graduating class or complete a specified precollege curriculum with at least a 2.0 grade-point average. The standards are slightly higher for out-of-state students.

Among all regents institutions, 857, or 3.88 percent of admitted students, did not meet qualified admission standards and were granted exceptions, the report shows.