CSUN anticipates more qualified freshman applicants than it can accept in Fall 2012, and has declared a state of campus impaction.
In order to prevent over-enrollment and avoid further penalties from the CSU, CSUN will enforce new admission requirements for freshman applicants known as “impaction.”
“Students that graduated from high schools in L.A. County or the surrounding areas of Northridge will have a better likelihood of attending CSUN in the fall,” said Cynthia Rawitch, CSUN vice provost.
Rawitch also said admission for Tier 2 freshman will be minimal. Tier 2 students are those that attended high schools outside the Los Angeles County and Ventura County areas.
The Eligibility Index is a combination of the GPA and SAT or ACT test scores, not including the writing score, according to csumentor.edu. Students can calculate their Eligibility Index score by multiplying their GPA by 800 and adding it to their combined SAT score, or by multiplying their GPA by 200 and adding 10 times the ACT composite score.
For CSUN admission in Fall 2012, Tier 1 students need to meet the minimum CSU requirement of a 2.0 GPA and a minimum index of 2900 using the SAT, or 694 using the ACT. Tier 2 students need a GPA significantly higher than 2.0 with a minimum index of 3900 using the SAT or 900 using the ACT, according to CSUN’s Admissions & Records website.
CSUN can only admit around 4,500 freshman in order to meet a target enrollment set by the CSU, Rawitch said. If CSUN over enrolls by more than 3 percent, the CSU could penalize CSUN with a multimillion dollar fine.
Impacted majors
at CSUN
After CSUN’s 2012 census, the school offered the deans of each college an opportunity to impact majors for the fall, Rawitch said.
So far, the only impacted majors are accountancy, finance and the insurance and financial services option under Business Administration. These majors have been impacted since 2003.
The finance major and the financial services option only admit students once upper division coursework is complete. A 2.5 GPA is also required.
“These majors are very popular,” said James Dow, CSUN finance department chair. “They are impacted because we do not have enough resources for all students in want of the major. What we want is for currently enrolled students to have access to the resources they need in order to graduate.”
Any student can apply as a pre-accountancy major, said Paul Lazarony, chair of the Accountancy Department. To transition to a declared accountancy major, students need to complete the impacted Accountancy 350 course. This course requires a 3.0 GPA and a C or better in all lower-division business courses.
“Even with impaction, the accountancy program is operating well over 100 percent capacity to accommodate as many students as humanly possible,” Lazarony said.
Future impaction for CSUN
Program impaction and impaction at the transfer level will continue to be options if over enrollment continues over the next few years, Rawitch said.
“At this time, CSUN has not chosen to implement further impaction,” Rawitch said. “But it could be a possibility revisited in the future.”
Over-enrollment widespread
Twenty-one out of 23 CSU campuses have declared some form of impaction.
Campuses such as CSU Long Beach and CSU Los Angeles have declared campus-wide impaction, meaning Tier 2 transfer applicants as well as freshman will have to complete additional requirements for admission.
Other CSUs such as CSU San Diego and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo have declared program impaction, which sets additional admission criteria based on major. Requirements may include supplemental courses or higher GPAs.
CSU spokeswoman Stephanie Thara said the decision to create impacted criteria is done on a campus-by-campus basis.
“Each campus has a census that determines where they stand in terms of enrollment,” Thara said. “Based on that census, individual campuses can then decide whether they want to impact their programs or not.”
