LSU change stirs controversy

“Holistic admissions,” a new term that has surfaced in Louisiana’s higher education circles, has ignited a firestorm of controversy. LSU President F. King Alexander defends the state flagship university’s new admissions policy that doesn’t just rely on an aspiring student’s ACT score.

One definition says holistic admissions take into account a student’s interests, passions, special talents and personality. So when considering whether someone should be admitted to LSU, admissions councilors will be looking at applicants’ essays, letters of recommendation and resumes, all in addition to test scores.

LSU wants to know how students reason and write, what teachers and others think about their abilities and prospects for success and about their accomplishments. Its admissions policy for the past 30 years, according to The Advocate, has been to reject, with a few narrow exceptions, any applicant who scored below 22 on the ACT, regardless of any other academic achievements.

Jose Aviles, LSU’s vice president for enrollment, told the newspaper, “We’re not looking just for good scores anymore. We’re looking to see a combination of factors that when put together say, ‘This student is ready to engage and succeed.’”

Supporters of holistic admissions say the current dependence on test scores only doesn’t consider lowincome and minority students, those coming from poor schools or those who have learning disabilities or family problems. Some of those students don’t test well but demonstrate abilities to succeed academically.

Aviles said, “We want a student who gets up every morning and works as hard as he or she can. Those are the students who succeed and those are characteristics that can’t be gleaned from a board score alone.”

LSU experimented with holistic admissions for its incoming freshman class, and Alexander said it is the largest and most diverse class in LSU history. He said it is among the highest achieving freshman class ever. The class scored an average 25.5 on the ACT and had a 3.5 grade point average on a scale of 0 to 4.

Richard Lipsey, a longtime member of the state Board of Regents, is perhaps the most vocal opponent of the new admissions policy. He heads a group called Put Louisiana First that on its Facebook page said, “We must stop King Alexander from lowering standards at LSU.”

Lipsey said it took years to raise standards at LSU and for many years high performing students left for other state flagship universities never to return. He said he didn’t care if other institutions around the country have adopted holistic admissions.

The new standards, he said, would end up with LSU cherry-picking students who otherwise would go to schools like the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the University of New Orleans, or one of the regional schools like Nicholls State or Mc-Neese State University.

Alexander said students who have failed to gain entrance into LSU aren’t going to in-state universities but are heading out of state because most of the nation’s universities have already moved to holistic admissions.

J. Stephen Perry, former chairman of the LSU Board of Supervisors, said college entrance exams have been widely criticized for helping families who put an emphasis on college — those who take their kids to museums, read to them and push academic pursuits. He said LSU’s new policy ensures the university has every tool with which to evaluate every student’s potential to succeed.

State Rep. Patricia Smith, D-Baton Rouge, has a distinguished record as an educator. Smith, in a letter to The Advocate, said critics should calm down and look at the facts and the results of holistic admissions at the universities competing with LSU for students.

“LSU now uses exactly the same admissions method as those schools,” Smith said. “If we listen to the ‘sky is falling’ crowd, LSU will reject scores of highly qualified applicants only to see them snapped up by Florida, Georgia and Texas and other top schools like Virginia, Michigan, Harvard or even Alabama.”

LSU thinks it is on solid ground for changing its admissions criteria because it installed stricter enrollment standards in 1989. That was before the Regents organized the state’s four-year colleges into tiers that are separated by minimum ACT scores or grade-point averages. Community colleges are open to all prospective students.

The Advocate in an editorial said the new policy is inconsistent with the university’s long-term strategy of raising the bar that’s been in place for years. It asked what the Regents might do if other campuses decide they want to emulate LSU and drop their objective standards for freshmen. However, other universities may not have the same option.

Higher education officials have been criticized often for failing to innovate and think out of the box. Isn’t that what LSU is doing here? Whatever happens, we can be sure we haven’t heard the last word about holistic admissions.

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Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than five decades. Contact him at 337-515-8871 or jbeam@americanpress.com.