S.03-79-

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Office of the Vice-President, Academic

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MEMORANDUM

TO: Members of Senate ?

FROM: John H. Wa

Vice-Presid€

RE:

SCEMP Recommendation re

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DATE:

Admission GPA for Associate Degree

Holders

In 1991, Senate approved a policy whereby students who had completed the requirements for

an Associate Degree from a BC College or University College and who had an admission GPA

of 2.00 or more would be granted admission to SFU. It was expected that a small number of

students would follow this route. Unexpectedly, by 2002 30% of the transfer students were

being admitted to SFU via this program with a significant difference in the GPAs for these

students:

Regular transfer students ?

average admission GPA 3.19

Associate Degree transfer students average admission GPA 2.64

In March, 2003, Senate approved a change to this policy so that the admission GPA of

Associate Degree holders would be increased to 0.25 CPA points less than that required for

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regular transfer students. The slight differential was supported and approved because the set

of courses required by Associate Degree programs supply a more complete grounding across the

undergraduate curriculum. In addition, when comparisons of the two groups are undertaken

and one controls for admission CPA, the Associate Degree students perform better than regular

transfer students.

This policy change was to be implemented for 2004-3.

In response to College concerns about the abruptness of the change to Associate Degree holders'

admission grade point average, discussions were held with Douglas College and BCCAT to

consider possible transition strategies. Arising from these discussions and consideration of

modeling data from Analytical Studies, SCEMP made the following procedural decision:

"That the Senate policy approved in March 2003 (to admit Associate Degree holders

at 0.25 CPA points less than that required for regular transfer students) be

implemented in two stages: a fixed admission CPA of 2.50 commencing in 2004-3

and a floating admission CPA of 0.25 below the cutoff for regular transfer students

commencing in 2005-3."

However, there is still the issue of advance notice about the CPA for admission, and

after consideration, SCEMP forwards the following motion for Senate approval:

Motion:

"That the admission CPA for Associate Degree holders be fixed at least one year in

advance, and the information communicated to the Colleges."

VPAO2sepO3

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September 4.