photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A giant video board is pictured at the Jayhawk Welcome Center on Feb. 15, 2023.

Today’s high school students who want to be guaranteed a future spot at the University of Kansas likely will have to start meeting a new set of standards when it comes to ACT scores and grade point averages.

One proposed change likely will make it more difficult for some students, while another change potentially could make it easier for other students who have good grades but don’t take the ACT or other standardized tests.

KU on Wednesday received preliminary approval to change its two pathways that students can follow to be guaranteed admission to KU. The first pathway would require students to score at least a 24 on the ACT and have a high school GPA of at least 2.5. That’s up from the current requirements of a score of 21 on the ACT and a minimum GPA of 2.0.

The second pathway — one for students who don’t want to take a standardized test — would require students to have a high school GPA of 3.0. That is down from the current requirement of a minimum GPA of 3.25.

The Academic Affairs committee of the Kansas Board of Regents approved the changes on Wednesday. The full Kansas Board of Regents will have to approve the new standards at a future meeting before they could begin.

KU leaders told the Regents about information they have accumulated since the COVID-19 pandemic, when admission standards were lowered as ACT and SAT testing was hampered. Nick Stevens, vice-provost of enrollment management, said recent data showed students who entered the university with a high school GPA of less than 2.5 and ACT scores less than 24 were faring worse than other students.

“Half of them drop out by sophomore year,” Stevens said.

He also said only 25% of students with that combination of ACT scores and grade point averages graduate within six years at KU. Both the retention rate and the graduation rate are well below the university’s overall averages, Stevens said.

KU leaders, however, said they are comfortable lowering the GPA requirement for students who seek admission without taking the ACT or other standardized tests. The data shows that students with a high school GPA of 3.0 are performing well once they arrive at KU.

Plus, lowering the GPA will make KU more competitive with other universities in the region, such as the University of Missouri, University of Arkansas and University of Iowa, all of which draw significant numbers of Kansas residents.

Many of those universities offer guaranteed admission to high school students with a 3.0 GPA. KU Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer said KU ultimately does admit nearly all students who apply with a 3.0 GPA or higher; however, the fact that they aren’t part of the guaranteed admission program means that those other regional universities often are notifying those students earlier that they’ve been accepted to the university.

“If we are telling them you have to wait to hear from us, and they already are hearing from Missouri, we have already lost them because they are asking ‘why does Missouri value me more than KU?'” Bichelmeyer told the Regents.

The Academic Affairs committee unanimously gave preliminary approval to the KU changes, but provided mixed comments on the strategy. Regent Diana Mendoza said she appreciated the change in grade point average requirements for those students who don’t take the ACT. She said many students and their academic performances change greatly from the time they are a freshman to a senior in high school. She said that is particularly true for students whose first language isn’t English. Given that a high school GPA is calculated over all four years, Mendoza said those GPAs may not be indicative of a student’s academic readiness as they graduate from high school.

“The 19-year old is not the same person she was her freshman year,” Mendoza said of many students.

Regent Neelima Parasker, however, said she had some concern about lowering the GPA requirement from 3.25 to 3.0. She said the changes could push some of Kansas’ top-achieving high school students away. She said those students do take into account how selective a university is when determining where they want to attend school, and see that KU’s acceptance rate is already near 90%.

Bichelmeyer told the Regents that KU believes the new admission standards will balance the need to be competitive with regional universities and to uphold KU’s promise that it will admit students that the university believes are well prepared to succeed.

The changes to the guaranteed admission standards, however, won’t affect KU’s ability to look at individual applications and determine the suitability of a student regardless of GPA or ACT scores, KU leaders told the Regents.