NIU this fall will enforce its “core specific admission requirements” which will affect freshmen enrolling for the 1988-89 school year.

NIU has changed its admission standards to include successful completion of a sequence of high school courses in addition to the previous admission requirements. This college preparatory sequence includes three years of English, two years of math, two years of science, two years of social science and one year of a humanities course.

Kendall Baker, NIU Provost, said the purpose of the requirements is to ensure high school students that they will be prepared for the types of courses that NIU offers.

Lou Jean Moyer, NIU associate provost, said the core specific admissions requirement has been in the NIU catalog for the past few years but the 1988-89 school year is the first it will be implemented.

Moyer said eventually all state colleges will be required to meet the same standards that NIU will be requiring. It is not expected to go state-wide until 1993, Moyer said.

Baker said NIU decided to adapt the admission requirement years before the state had chosen to make it state-wide.

“This is not an unusual process, many states other than Illinois have already been doing the same,” he said.

“This (NIU) is not a place for remediation of high school skills and knowledgeability. We are now saying this is what you should have when you come to NIU, if not, you will have difficulty at our institution,” he said.

“The university is making an effort to decrease the number of students on campus due to the present budget cuts, but the high school students were given ample warning on NIU admission plan policies. NIU has not had a problem reaching its target,” Moyer said.

Moyer said NIU’s enrollment target for fall of 1988 is 3,150.

Baker said, “The decision to implement the requirements occurred prior to the financial problems NIU is facing. The decision was made several years ago and is not at all in response to the budget crisis.”

Moyer said high school students will be allowed to be short one unit of the requirements in 1988-89 but then all requirements must be met.

Robert Burk, admissions associate director, said the addition of the admission requirements supports NIU’s standing as being the toughest state school to get into outside of University of Illinois at Champaign.

Baker said the main purpose of the admission requirments is to select “top quality students that are well prepared for the curricula at NIU.”