As the University of Wyoming considers tougher admission standards…the offshoot is that it might be tougher for minority students to automatically qualify to attend U-W.
A study found that if the standards had been in effect in 2009… 56 percent of Native Americans, African Americans and Hispanics who applied to U-W would have been automatically qualified, while 83 percent of white students would have been accepted.
The University is considering asking for students to have a grade point averages of three-point-zero and an A-C-T score of 21, and U-W President Tom Buchanan says they are trying to keep students from dropping out.
He says those who don’t meet such standards tend to struggle.
“We know they are going to enter into classes they are not likely to do well in,” says Buchanan. “ And we know from the evidence that too high a percentage of them are not likely to persist and proceed. We are not talking about turning these students away, we are talking about being a little more forceful about how we assist those students.”
Buchanan says they want to require students who don’t meet standards to be forced to take special classes that might help them succeed, but he says they are also pushing to get students to take a more rigorous high school curriculum.
