Woodland Hills, California and Woodland Hills, Utah are 659 miles away from each other but would both be considered out of the area if California State University Los Angeles changed its definition of local.
CSULA had announced Pierce College would no longer be given local status, but the decision was reversed March 13 by the president of CSULA.
“I don’t know if it’ll happen again. It seems likely that it will because now this is the second time,” Salter said.
Local preference is given to LACCD campuses, Pasadena City College, Rio Hondo College and Santa Monica College.
The minimum admission grade point average for local area applicants from schools inside California State University Los Angeles local admission area is a 2.0 GPA. If the local status was removed for applicants, then the minimum admission GPA would be a 3.5 GPA.
According to the Director of Transfer Center Sunday Salter, CSULA has reached some level of impaction causing stricter requirements.
“The reason Cal State LA is making that change is because they are overly enrolled with too many students. So they have to decrease their number of students so they decided to make Pierce, Valley, Mission and Harbor non local schools,” Sunday said.
“They have more applicants than they have spots available,” Salter said. “That’s when they have to start using stricter requirements for admissions.”
Salter said CSULA had public forums so people may voice their concern. They also had an online posting where anyone can post their commentary.
“Everyone got upset and everyone complained,” Salter said. “People spoke up and said it was just not fair. ‘We are your local students. Don’t remove us from your local area.’”
Nazneen Yousuf who recently was admitted to CSUN was surprised by the local status decision.
“I think it’s not a good idea,” Nazneen Yousuf, a student, said. “Everybody should have a chance.”
Flora Umer, a student, did not support removing the local status.
“They should never define people by the numbers or the GPA,” Umer said.
According to Salter, the president and other members of CSULA were making the decisions on whether to keep the local status for Pierce and other local colleges.
“It was decided to get off the plan completely, so nothing’s changed,” Salter said. “They decided to take us out and put us back in.”
Salter said that she was upset that CSULA was doing this to Pierce.
“I wanted us to be local,” Salter said. “Cal State LA has some amazing programs and if they’re making it more of a challenge for our students to get in, I’m going to fight for our students.”
According to Salter, since the local status decision was reversed, CSULA will be having more impacted majors.
“If you’re applying to one of those majors, you’re still going to need a higher GPA and have more of your major prepped up,” Salter said.
Salter said students looking to transfer should come up with a plan early on in their academic career.
“Wherever you’re transferring you need to get those major classes done as early as possible and work as hard as you can to get those grades up because that’s what’s going to make a difference for you,” Salter said. “It’s so important to decide early on where you want to apply to, sit down with a counselor and come up with a plan.”
