The chancellor of City University of New York, the nation’s
largest urban public university system, has approved a new standard that may
make it harder for Black and Hispanic students to gain admittance.
Freshman students starting in the fall of 2008 will have to
have a math SAT score 20 to 30 points higher
than the current scores needed for admission to the university’s five top- tier
colleges, Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens
and 11 senior colleges.
“Back in 1999, CUNY began a series of reforms to raise its
standards in order to increase the value in CUNY degrees…and this is the most
recent development,” said Jay Hershenson, secretary of the board and senior
vice chancellor for University Relations.
Under the new standards, Hershenson said, students must score
510 or better in the math portion of the SAT
or receive a 75 percent or higher in the state Regents Exam, taken in high
school; or pass the CUNY assessment test given to incoming students.
The decision, made early this summer by the university
chancellor Dr. Matthew Goldstein, is the result of several decisions with math
professors who say students are unprepared for college-level work and
administrators and the Board of Trustee.
The move is being widely criticized, including by faculty
members.
