re: BOS meeting has begun...UPDATE: Dalton is new chancellor, Rousse is LSU System President

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It was Tate’s exploitation of that admission policy that created current campus situation by increasing admission numbers using out of state and/or DEI enrollees (some crossover there) which were always masked by being allowed to compare voluntary ACT scores to mandatory scores, later compare ACT super scores to historic ACT composite scores, and push inflated GPAs due to ACT and SATS not being mandatory for admissions, for honors college, and for university controlled or funded scholarships.

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Let me preface this by saying I don’t think LSU should be test optional.

That being said, I think people are stretching the impact of the test optional admissions. I completely agree with those who say our average ACT hasn’t actually increased from ~25.5 to 28. It’s obvious that superstores and test optional admissions will skew the average higher.

The problem, I think, is extrapolating that to say “LSU is accepting worse students on average.” I haven’t seen any actual evidence of this.

Some data below from freshman enrollees in 2018 and 2024.

Stat: 2018 -> 2024 (Change)

Total enrollees: 5,809 -> 7,912 (+36%)

Average HS GPA: 3.43 -> 3.83 (+0.40)

Percentage of class with HS GPA:
3.75-4.00: 30% -> 58% (+28%)
3.50-3.74: 23% -> 18% (-5%)
3.25-3.49: 22% -> 14% (-8%)
3.00-3.24: 16% -> 9% (-7%)
2.50-2.99: 9% -> 1% (-8%)

Percentage of class with HS class rank:
Top 10%: 23% -> 26% (+3%)
Top 25%: 47% -> 54% (+7%)
Top 50%: 77% -> 83% (+6%)
Bottom 50%: 23% -> 17% (-6%)
Bottom 25%: 7% -> 4% (-3%)

I understand why people say the ACT scores are skewed, and I agree. I see people say that grade inflation has led to the higher HS GPA’s.. that feels more like speculation, but sure. Let’s go with that for now. But the class rank data seems pretty solid and does not appear to support the idea that LSU is accepting lower-quality students on average.

You’re accepting more students overall, more students from the top 10%, top 25%, and top 50% of their high school class, and fewer students from the bottom 50% and bottom 25% of their high school class. Meanwhile, 43% of the students who did not submit test scores had 4.0 GPA’s.

Again I’m not saying test optional is a good policy. I don’t like it. But I think it’s a huge stretch for folks to act like all of the enrollment growth is due to LSU accepting kids who couldn’t get in previously. There’s just no data (that I’ve seen) to support this position.