The main decisions items of this meeting were as follows:
- Changes to 2024-2026 Curriculum
- Admissions Criteria 2025
- Statistics on Admissions 2024
Announcements were made regarding the new student vlogs (e.g. here for the QT one) and the possibility of a major-specific lunch for students to meet their academic advisors, which some professors including the head of the QT major showed interest.
The Changes to 2024-2026 Curriculum concerned some reshuffling and replacing of courses for the DSD major. Moreover, the committee agreed on the learning outcomes description of each English BSc minor. This should give a better idea to students deciding their minor and help minor staff to approve or reject a student’s suggestion to include a specific course in their minor plan.
For the Admissions Criteria 2025, the committee discussed the changes to the division of admissions group and their respective target quotas. The Dean has proposed to reorganize the groups into three instead of the current two. Admissions group 1 and 2 are assessed based on SAT scores, where group 1 is the same as the current group 2 but the new group 2 specifically includes those who have completed a high-school degree from the current group 1 (i.e. Finnish high-school degree, IB, etc.). The third admissions group would then contain those assessed based on these high-school grades only, which is the same as current group 1. This decision has not yet been made by the Dean and no clear justification was given by them. In case it is accepted, the committee agreed that each head of major would distribute the current quota to the new admissions group. Lack of data regarding students that applied and the performance of students that have attended was called for attention, which hinders the accuracy of decisions about admissions. Finally, a proposal was made to increase the minimum required SAT scores to reduce the gap between current lowest accepted SAT scores and the minimum requirements.
The topic of Statistics on Admissions 2024 showed another increase in the lowest accepted SAT score for all study options, with the highest being 1540 for Data Science. I pondered about this continuing increase and the challenges applicants might face in the future, suggesting the possibility of a holistic admissions criteria. The response was, unfortunately, Aalto does not have the resources to conduct a holistic process and that these scores are adjusted according to the target quota intake.
The next meeting is scheduled for August 21, 2024.