Modesto City signs guaranteed-admission deal with UC Merced. What it means for students
Modesto City Schools has become the first district in Stanislaus County to join a guaranteed-admission partnership that the University of California, Merced, already has with five school districts in its home county.
Modesto joining the Merced Automatic Admission Program, or MAAP, will allow students who graduate high school with a weighted GPA of 3.5 and no grade lower than a “C” to be automatically admitted to UC Merced. The deal was inked in Modesto on Tuesday by MCS Superintendent Sara Noguchi and UC Merced Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz.
During a signing ceremony attended by MCS trustees and staff from the district and the university, Noguchi noted that MAAP continues a partnership with UC Merced. Last spring, the district, the Merced school, California State University, Stanislaus, and other partners formed a collaborative called the 1300 Campaign. The mission of the campaign is “to provide support and remove barriers so that 1,300 male students of color” would be ready for college and enrolled in the UC or CSU systems by 2026, the superintendent said.
MAAP supports the vision of the 1300 Campaign and goes beyond that to “create a clear pathway for all of our eligible high school juniors beginning the summer before their senior year,” Noguchi said. It ensures that all eligible students work with their counselors in a streamlined process that will lead to increased enrollment at UC Merced, she said.
UC Merced has a student population of 9,100, Muñoz said. The university’s director of admissions, Dustin Noji, told The Bee in an email, “Based on our enrollment data from fall 2020 to fall 2022, incoming high school seniors from Modesto City Schools make up about 2% of our incoming first-year class.”
It will be a few years before MCS and UC Merced see what enrollment growth MAAP brings, Noguchi said. The first eligible students must submit a MAAP application between May 1 and July 1, before the start of their senior year.
Noji said Modesto City, with seven comprehensive high schools, is the biggest partner district in MAAP. Merced Union High School District has five comprehensive high schools, he said, and smaller districts in MAAP are Cutler-Orosi Joint Unified School District, Chowchilla Union High School District, Dinuba Unified School District and Los Banos Unified.
In remarks at the signing ceremony, Muñoz noted that this summer, Washington Monthly ranked UC Merced among the top 50 universities in the United States and No. 23 among public universities.
Building skills, insights for Valley
He said the university is “deeply committed to our Valley neighbors, to their families, to their success and to the importance of higher education being the mechanism for social mobility, not just for the student but for the families that they come from and the communities that produce them. Think about that, the idea that they go back to the communities that are responsible for those skills, those insights, those intuitions and go back and use that education to improve the circumstances for others.”
The university draws students from all over the world and sends researchers all over the world to address global problems, the chancellor said. But it also wants to be an environment where students from the Valley can work on solutions to problems including climate, wildfires and soil erosion.
The university does research in the Sierra Nevada, in Yosemite, at vernal pools and in wetlands, Muñoz said. It’s working with the leadership of the Almond Board of California on how to partner on the university’s 40-acre experimental “smart farm,” on the future of agriculture, and the future of technology in ag to develop high-tech jobs “that don’t require you to leave four states over.”
He said he wants students to know that “UC Merced is a place where there’s no limits to their intellectual journey. And that intellect is cultivated first in your district, in your classrooms.”
Stanislaus State is working on similar partnerships with K-12 school districts, said Rosalee Rush, the university’s senior associate vice president of communications and public affairs. “This fall, our intention is to extend conversations with some high school districts in our service area,” she said in an email.
Criteria to qualify for MAAP
In a news release on joining MAAP, Noguchi said, “This unique partnership helps us double-down on our district goal to ensure equitable access for all students to attain college and career readiness.”
The release also lays out the four criteria MCS juniors must meet to gain automatic acceptance for fall 2024 admission:
- Submit a MAAP application between May 1 and July 1.
- Complete 15 yearlong A-G courses required for freshman UC admissions with a weighted GPA of 3.5, with no grade lower than a C.
- By the end of the junior spring term, complete three of the four years of Area B (English) and complete Area C (math).
- Complete and submit the University of California Undergraduate Application for Admission & Scholarships during the Oct. 1 through Nov. 30 priority filing period.
When applying, students may elect any major offered.
To learn more, visit admissions.ucmerced.edu/maap or email admissions@ucmerced.edu.
This story was originally published September 29, 2022 at 7:00 AM.
