Capping the pathway to a Cap

Wil:

So it has finally happened. The University of Otago has implemented changes which will limit entry into pretty much all undergraduate courses from 2011 onwards. This decision would have been due to a combination of factors, of the most important being reduced government funding and an increase in student enrolments. Funding from the government subsidises a large percentage of the course fee for domestic students (i.e. what you pay for your papers is only a fraction of the total cost of it).

Students leaving high school and intending to enroll into the university will have been divided into one of two categories - Preferential Entry or Competitive Entry.
If a student has achieved NCEA Level 2 with Merit or Excellence endorsement they would have gained Preferential Entry. This then guarantees a place at the university provided that University Entrace is gained at NCEA Level 3.

Those who weren't successful at gaining Preferential Entry are placed in Competitive Entry. Students in this category will be assessed and ranked according to their academic performance and other relevant criteria and will be offered places in order of priority, subject to the availability of places in their nominated programmes.
There are more details regarding Competitive Entry but let's just leave it at that.

Other ways of gaining Preferential Entry are securing a place at a University of Otago Residential Hall, or earning a University of Otago Scholarship. The basis of these "alternatives" is that any student who has gained a place in Preferential Entry by either of these means would have been subjected to a selection process already and thus deserving of a place at the university. There are obvious flaws to these methods of admission.

So those are the new admission changes for 2011 in a nut shell.

A couple of months back before any details were released, when I first heard about the introduction of limited entry into previously open entry courses I was a bit horrified. I thought back to my time in high school doing NCEA Level 3. My results were something uninspiring. Out of the 36 or so achievement standards I was entered for, I only managed to get about 3 or so Excellence grades. If limited entry prerequisites were introduced back when I was about to enter university, with my mediocre grade I would have felt like I was staring at a 20 metre tall brick wall with a couple of sticks and string to make a ladder out of.

My argument is that if they were to introduce any sort of academic prerequisites at university, it should be at the end of the first year. The logic behind it is that high school is about as different from university as watermelon is from a grape. Sure they're both education (or fruit) but that's where the similarities stop. The way education is taught, marked, proposed, and implemented at university is so much more than high school (and that silly NCEA nonsense). Essentially, some people who don't do as well under NCEA can do exceptionally well at university.
Take for example, me. No matter how hard I tried under the NCEA system all I could get was a couple of silly Excellence grades which I could count all out with one hand. Now compare that to now (prepare for some shameless gloating) where I've managed to maintain an A+ (> 90%) average over my 1.5 years at university so far. Obviously there will be some confounding factors but the story here is that sucky grades in high school does not correlate to sucky grades at university. Hence my argument of introducing limited entry into second year, as opposed to first year of university.

So I was ready to fling out my opinion on what i've just said above to anyone who was prepared to listen until I read the media release from the university on the details of the Preferential entry/Competitive entry admissions system for 2011.

I have one thing to say about this introduced limited admissions system: how tame.

Now thinking about it, it might be a bit unfair of me to say that seeing as I secured both a place in a residential hall and a University of Otago scholarship for my first year, so I would've gotten Preferential entry anyway.

However, any high school student who has half a brain to invest in their future well-being could get a merit endorsement at NCEA Level 2 (Well at my school that was the case, and my high school wasn't the flashest, to be honest).
For the record, I got NCEA Level 2 endorsed with Excellence (just!).


Anyway, what i'm REALLY interested in is how this new limited entry admissions system will affect numbers in first year courses. The one course that I will purposely refer to is Health Sciences First Year (or First Year Health Sciences, whatever). HSFY is the first year course that will lead into Dentistry, Medical Laboratory Science, Medicine, Pharmacy and Physiotherapy.
This year I believe there is about 1800 students in HSFY with at minimum about 50% of them competing to get into Medicine. Needless to say, competition is cut-throat and people go nuts during this first year. I digress!

HSFY has previously been open entry (provided you had University Entrance) and the university was quite happy with that because imagine the amount of dosh all these kids were bringing in (~$5400.00/student x 1800 students = $9720000.00; or $9.72 million).
Anyway, I'm going to try to find out next year how much the HSFY cohort will have been cut down as a result of this limited entry. It shall be interesting, no?

Note that this does not make it easier or harder for those who get into HSFY to get into dent/medlab/med/pharm/physio. This is because even without restriction of entry in HSFY, those who would have been caught out by the limited entry admissions requirements would have dropped out after the first semester (or first month). In either case, only the "real" competition makes it to the end of second semester.
Hmmm I should practice caution here but I think I remember hearing that up to 400 people dropped out of HSFY after first semester last year when I was doing the course.


Anyway, so I guess the other obvious questions have to be asked:

- Will these limited entry methods stop douches from entering uni and wasting the country's money on silly little degrees like a BA in eating chalk?
- What will happen to the people who unfortunately miss out on a place at uni, but genuinely want to have a go at university?
- Why has the university only brought this in now? (in my opinion, restrictions should have been brought in ages ago regardless of funding status. But that's another story!)


Stay tuned!



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Disclaimer: All comments made in this post (and in the whole blog anyway) is the opinion of the author and does not represent that of the University of Otago and its admissions committee.
The author has endeavored to present as much correct information as possible but there's a likely chance that something in there is made up. Amendments may be made at any time without notice. By reading this you can't hold me legally to anything. Ha!