The final deadline to submit for Connecticut’s automatic admissions was Thursday. The state hopes to have received double the number of submissions as the previous year – when 1,600 college hopefuls participated.
Terrence Cheng is the chancellor at Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, a consortium of schools that includes four of the nine colleges that opt into the automatic admissions program. He said that aside from the fact that the program has had a chance to spread, a big reason for the jump in estimated submissions has to do with the state’s partnership with Common App, the dominant college application platform across the United States.
“Common App streamlines everything. It is literally a one-stop shop,” he said. “It's all in one platform, and it is about as easy as you could ask for to be utilized. And so using the Common App… It just made perfect sense.”
Cheng said the main goal of the admissions program is to increase access and inclusivity in the college entrance process, specifically for students who haven’t previously considered college as a possibility after finishing high school.
“We're proud of the fact that students from our local communities are now looking at places like our four universities, and saying, ‘Hey, I can go there, and they've made it so easy for me,’ and it triggers something in them. That kind of desire, that yearning to take the next step.”
He and the state continue to push that goal. Cheng said he’s looking to change the automatic admission policy from percentile rankings to grade point average so even more students have the chance to submit in the following years.
