Albuquerque high school students seem willing to buckle down and meet the proposed admission standards the Board of Regents is discussing today.
Manzano High School student Jessica Broomhall said UNM should raise the bar and encourage students to succeed in high school.
“Being in high school and looking at the majority of students with me, they don’t really care or work hard, but they can pretty much get into New Mexico colleges pretty easily,” Broomhall said. “I think requiring more courses and more work will be really good. It would help people stay more focused.”
The altered standards would raise the required GPA from 2.25 to 2.5 and the required college credits to 16 from 13. These credits are to be discussed at today’s Regents meeting.
Raised admission standards would put UNM in league with more prestigious universities, said Eldorado High School student Joe Mendoza. Students who want to apply elsewhere already need to meet equal or more difficult terms.
“Most people say UNM is a really easy school to get into no matter how you do in high school, “ he said. “You can basically coast through high school and get in. It’s not a hard thing to do.”
The changes could act as both a motivator and a weeding-out mechanism, said Eldorado High School teacher Sheldon Richards.
“There is sort of a lot of attitude that no matter how well you do in high school you will still make it into UNM, so there is not a lot of pressure,” he said. “I think it’s likely that this will sort of filter out some people that maybe wouldn’t have been successful at UNM otherwise.”
Eldorado student Nick Schneider said most people will adhere to the changes with little difficulty.
“Most people don’t want to take math their senior year and when they go to college they are behind one year,” he said. “I think most people will just step up, but there will be those few kids on the side that will be like, ‘Screw this. We will go to CNM or something.’”
Sarah Sariñana, a Manzano student, said higher standards will unfairly shut doors to some students, but they need to be prepared for college level classes.
“I know for some people, school is harder for them, so if you change the requirements for GPA they might not be able to get in,” she said. “UNM is raising its expectations by making it more difficult to get in, and in the long run it will prepare us more for college.”
UNM’s commitment to providing opportunities for students is important, but many don’t take the education seriously because they did not have to work for it, Richards said.
“I’ve always felt like one of the things New Mexico has done really well is to make it possible for a wide variety of students to attend college, and there has been a lot done to make that possible,” he said. “On the other hand, they do have a lot of freshmen that don’t make it through the first year. The drop out rate is pretty high.”
Amira Gallegher, a Sandia student, said she is willing to abide by the modifications.
“It wouldn’t bother me; it’s not, like, that hard to take more classes,” she said. “I think it is a good idea because it makes people work harder to get into UNM. It’s a good school you know and it will make people work harder to go there. I think it will upset some people but it really is better because people won’t just waste away their senior year.”
Raising the academic bar for New Mexico is nice in theory, Richards said, but it is important to realize some people will be excluded from a UNM education based on high school behavior.
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“I don’t know if there is a strong correlation and between high school grades and whether students are succeeding at UNM or not, but it’s a shame to lose some of that opportunity,” he said.
*WHAT STUDENTS THINK
“I think it is a good idea because it makes people work harder to get into UNM. Its’ a good school you know and it will make people work harder
to go there.”
~Amira Gallegher, Sandia High School
“I think it’s a good idea because most people don’t want to take math their senior year and when they go to college they are behind one year.”
~Nick Schneider, Eldorado High School
“I think requiring more courses and more work will be really good. It would help people stay more focused.”
~Jessica Broomhall, Manzano
High School
*
