Over 2,000 Accepted in UH Automatic Admission Program

Nearly 2,000 students from community colleges within the University of Hawai’i system have been offered admission to any of the university’s four-year campuses through the automatic admissions program. The University system identified and began notifying students Feb. 2. Students will have until March 2 to accept the offer.

The program uses UH’s degree audit system, STAR, to determine eligible students who meet the automatic admission criteria. In the past five years, more than 18,000 students have received automatic admission offers, and of them, nearly 5,000 students used the program to transfer to UH Hilo, UH Manoa or UH West Oahu.

“The goal of the automatic admission program was simply to remove barriers for our students,” said Joanne Itano, associate vice president for academic affairs. “Community colleges are increasingly a primary entry point for students who transfer to UH four-year campuses and this program offers them a streamlined process.”

Through automatic admission, students attending UH Community Colleges who have completed their associate in arts or select associate in science degrees are able to transfer to UH four-year campuses without having to reapply. The process, which is done electronically, waives the application fee, saving students between $50 and $70.

Students who are eligible for the automatic admission will be notified by STAR through e-mail. At that point, students can electronically select the campus they would like to transfer to as well as their intended major.

UH Manoa conceptualized the idea of the automatic admission program as part of UH’s Hawai’i Graduation Initiative, which aims to increase the number of citizens with a college degree or certificate and meet the state’s goal of seeing 55 percent of working adults holding a two or four-year degree by 2025.