LSU's New Admission Policies Explained

Dr. Jim Henderson, University of Louisiana System President, talks with 101.7 / 710 KEEL's Robert J Wright and Erin McCarty about changes in admission standards coming to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Henderson explains the reasoning behind the changes made by the school's administration, saying that the state's major university is looking to take a more "holistic" approach in selecting future students. From theadvocate.com:

LSU is relaxing a generation-old policy of automatically rejecting applicants who score too low on the standardized entrance exams like the ACT.

Instead, the state’s flagship university will be placing more emphasis on recommendation letters, personal essays and activities outside academia. Though the first in Louisiana to eject hard minimums, LSU is joining a national “holistic admissions” wave that diminishes the importance of tests like the ACT and SAT.

More than 1,000 schools in the nation have eliminated standardized testing as an admissions requirement as of January, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

Henderson, who has authority over nine of the state's universities - LSU not among them - says his system's goal is to "serve more students because we have to have a more educated workforce."