More than 71,000 future undergraduate students applied for admittance in the undergraduate program at California State University of Long Beach for the Fall semester of 2010, according to a statement released Thursday morning. As a whole, the Cal State University system set a new record for applications received, and CSULB received the most applications of the 22 campuses.
The release also announced, however, that only 5,500 of those 71,000 students will be accepted and admitted into next year’s school system.
This marks a new standard of selectiveness from the university. To put this into perspective a little bit, when I applied to study at CSULB for the Fall of 2003, there was a 100% guarantee that you would be accepted as long as you met the basic CSU requirements.
Those days are long gone.
Thanks to recent budget shortfalls and the sheer number of applicants, less than 8% of applicants will be accepted to attend CSULB in the Fall. I didn’t major in math, but 8% is much less than 100%.
The 71,000 applicants includes incoming freshmen, as well as transfer students and international students. But there will be an especially close watch on those incoming freshmen next year.
The Daily 49er student newspaper on Wednesday reported that for the first time in the university’s history, incoming freshmen will be required to reside in on-campus housing for their first full year at CSULB.
The move was made in an attempt to end CSULB’s reputation as a commuter school, where students attend class and promptly return home without involving themselves in campus life. Requiring students to spend their first year on campus will, in theory, create greater connectedness with the university.
There are exemptions to the rule, such as students that live with their parents or require special care.
It also has to do with university President F. King Alexander’s goal of increasing the university’s visibility within the community. One of the first major changes President Alexander announced upon his arrival a few years ago was to purchase the former Brooks College campus on PCH and develop it into CSULB housing. Click here to read a column on the Residential Learning College (RLC), written by lbpost.com columnist Noel Hacegaba.
Even with an undergraduate class of more than 38,000 this semester, the university’s on-campus housing – which has room for just 2,000 students – experienced shortages and empty rooms. The announcement that incoming freshmen must live in the dorms will eliminate those shortages.