More IPS high schoolers will gain seamless admission to IU Indianapolis
MIRROR INDY (INDIANAPOLIS) — More Indianapolis students soon will be offered a direct pathway to an education at Indiana University Indianapolis.
IU Indianapolis is announcing an expansion of its seamless admissions program which allows students at several partner high schools to automatically enroll at the Indy campus if they have a GPA of 3.0 or higher.
The university began the program this year, offering a simplified admissions process to students at IPS’ Arsenal Tech, Crispus Attucks, George Washington and Shortridge high schools who plan to start at IU Indianapolis this fall.
The university plans to expand seamless admissions in the coming school year to eight additional high schools, including those affiliated with IPS through its Innovation Network. Those high schools include:
- Christel House Watanabe Manual High School
- Herron High School
- Herron-Riverside High School
- Hope Academy High School
- KIPP Indy Legacy High School
- Phalen Virtual Leadership Academy
- Purdue Polytechnic High School – Broad Ripple
- Purdue Polytechnic High School Schweitzer Center at Englewood
Student transcript requirements and a $65 application fee are waived under the seamless admissions program. Instead, IPS students who meet the GPA requirements only need to fill out a short online form.
Administrators say it’s one way to increase the number of IPS students attending college after high school. The school district also is rolling out a Middle School College Campus Visits Program that seeks to expose students to university experiences at an earlier age.
This comes as the state grapples with stagnant college-going rates. Indiana hit its lowest college-going rate in a generation in 2020 with just 53% of graduating high schoolers choosing to go straight to college, according to data from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. The rate has stayed flat since then.
IU Indianapolis officials have had events on campus and in IPS schools this spring to get the word out about the new seamless admissions program and encourage students to pursue educational opportunities after high school. An IU spokesman told Mirror Indy in an email that 158 students have been seamlessly admitted.
“We heard from school counselors that our pilot initiative has helped encourage students who didn’t initially think college was for them to pursue higher education,” PJ Woolston, vice chancellor for enrollment management at IU Indianapolis, said in a provided statement. “Ninety percent of our graduates stay in Indiana after graduation, which means these students are equipped to give back to their communities and central Indiana.”
The expansion of seamless admissions begins next school year. That means all rising IPS seniors who meet the program’s GPA requirements will be able to use seamless admissions to apply to attend IU Indianapolis in the fall 2025 semester.
IU officials say they’ve heard interest from other school districts and plan to explore future expansions in Marion County.
More information about seamless admissions at IU Indianapolis is available on the university’s website.