California State University is pilot testing a direct admissions program at ten of its 23 campuses.
California State University, the nation’s largest public university system, will pilot test its first direct admissions program for high school seniors, effective for the fall 2025 semester.
CSU is partnering with the Riverside County Office of Education to offer a direct admission pilot for ten universities in the 23-campus CSU system. Eligible graduates from every public high school in Riverside County — estimated at about 12,00o students — will soon be offered direct admission to CSU for the fall 2025 term, before they even apply.
To qualify for the offer, high school seniors in Riverside County must meet the college preparatory courses (A-G requirements) that both Cal State and the University of California require for admissions. Basically, those are college prep courses in history/social science, English, math, a foreign language, a laboratory science, visual and performing arts, and a college preparatory elective. Those courses must be passed with a grade of C or better.
Students satisfying those requirements will be mailed a brochure informing them of their conditional admission. They will then use the CaliforniaColleges.edu platform to select their preferred CSU campuses, with official acceptance letters to be sent directly from the universities later.
Once they receive the official acceptance from their university of choice, students must confirm their intent to enroll by the campus deadline and complete any additional enrollment steps such as attending orientation, paying tuition and fees, and providing final transcripts or other documentation.
The 10 CSU campuses included in the direct admission in this pilot are Channel Islands, Chico, East Bay, Humboldt, Maritime Academy, Monterey Bay, San Bernardino, San Francisco, San Marcos, and Sonoma.
Students may also apply to other California State University institutions that are not participating in the pilot and be admitted through the standard process. If a student applies to an impacted program or campus, additional criteria may be required for admission to certain majors.
More information about the program can be found at www.calstate.edu/rcoe.
“We are excited to provide a direct pathway to higher education for thousands of high school students across Riverside County,” said April Grommo, CSU assistant vice chancellor of Strategic Enrollment Management, as part of the announcement. “We want students to know that the door to college opportunity is open to them, and to help relieve some of the stress and uncertainty about applying for college. Riverside County is an excellent location for this first-ever program for the CSU, as it is ethnically and economically representative of the diversity of California, and many of the students the CSU is so proud to serve.”
Direct — or guaranteed — admissions is a rapidly expanding enrollment strategy where students are offered admission to a college or university — sometimes with financial aid — without requiring them to complete a lengthy admissions process first. An increasing number of states and institutions have experimented with the program in an effort to boost enrollments and increase student diversity.
Idaho was the first state to do so, starting its program in 2015. In October of this year, Utah introduced its program, and the Common Application announced it was growing its direct admissions program for the 2024–2025 application season to 116 member colleges and universities in 34 states. Universities in Wisconsin, New York and Georgia have also introduced different versions of direct admissions.
Niche, one of several private companies now offering a direct admissions platform to partner institutions, has expanded its 2025 direct admissions program to more than 100 college and university partners in 33 states, with dozens more still expected to join.
California State University is testing direct admissions as one strategy to regain the enrollment it’s lost over the past few years. Systemwide, enrollment declined by more that 6% between 2019 and 2023. While the current year saw a 2% uptick in enrollment, CSU’s fall 2024 enrollment of about 461,000 students still falls well short of the 485,550 students who were enrolled in 2020.
