KRISTINA LONG
City Times
Take advanced placement classes, graduate with honors and continue your education at a university; that’s what parents, teachers, and guidance counselors are constantly screaming at you throughout your entire education. At whom and what will they scream when they find out that the university that you are trying to apply to is no longer accepting applications? Most likely . you!
According to San Diego State University’s admissions website, next spring they will not be accepting applications for any undergraduate students. For those of you who were planning on going there in the spring, you better start looking at other schools, and do it quickly.
Unfortunately, this new policy affects me as well. I went off to a four year university and did well, and when I decided to transfer from Arizona State to San Diego State as an undergraduate
student, I fell into the trap set by our flawed collegiate transfer system.
I understand that this university is a very popular campus, and situations similar to this are bound to happen. However, with that said, I also do not think that applications should be cut off completely. Students like me who are so close to graduating should be given the opportunity to apply.
The only issue here is not with SDSU, it is with our entire transfer system. Like many other students, when I tried to transfer from one state university to another I lost many classes that had to be retaken here at City College.
This was something that really got under my skin. I took the same standardized test that the students at SDSU took to get in and was accepted into a four-year university elsewhere, so shouldn’t I be able to transfer from one state university to another?
The whole point of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT) is to have a test that is similar all over the country to test the knowledge of students. I took the same exact test at Jon Doe from Alabama, and got the same education at ASU as he did at SDSU, yet when I went to transfer I still was unable to.
I feel that this is very unfair. The universities should take into account who is applying and where they are in terms of graduation status before they decide to cut off applications in the middle of a school year.
We are constantly told to plan for the future and prepare ourselves, but I feel that the universities make it difficult to do that.
Many students like me who are done with all of our classes by spring will be sitting around twiddling our thumbs because we have taken all classes necessary for our major to get into SDSU, yet are not able to apply because they will not be accepting students for their spring semester.
I propose that SDSU and all state schools take a better look at who is in their schools and who is trying to get in. They should analyze student’s progress more efficiently and if a student is slacking, they have them take a semester off and go to a junior college, leaving a space open for a student, like me, who is stuck here with no classes to take.
With transfer students, they should also take into consideration that they did the same work as any other state university student to get to where they are.
State schools should have standardized curriculum so that students have more flexibility in transferring from one state school to another.
** Kristina Long is a City Times staff writer
