The Council on Academic Affairs will discuss and vote on three items during its meeting Thursday at 2 p.m.

One item seeks to add a communicated GPA for students who students who apply to Eastern as test-optional, meaning they do not include their ACT or SAT scores when applying to the university.

“A survey of our peers shows that EIU has the highest communicated GPA threshold in the market and we believe this has contributed to our current application deficit for New Freshman for Fall 2021,” according to a memo from Josh Norman, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management and Kelly Miller, Director of Admissions. “Other institutions like EIU have implemented test-optional or even test-blind policies to increase equity and access for their prospective students and it is clear for this cycle that clarity and access are of great benefit to those institutions with more clearly communicated GPA threshold.”

Another item seeks to add similar language for applicants in the Gateway Program. Those students would need a minimum 2.3 GPA based on six or more semesters to be considered to apply for test-optional application.

A third item would update Eastern’s admissions policies to reflect the changes in the first two items.

Corryn Brock can be reached at 581-2812 or at  [email protected].