Too Many Roadblocks for Local Students to Enter College?

For a lot of San Mateo County high school seniors - and seniors across the country - 2012 proved to be an extremely hard year to be accepted at an institute of higher learning.

Bay Area universities have been a part of the trend.

At Stanford, the admission rate was 6.6 percent for those applying, no matter where they lived. That was third worst in the nation. More than nine of ten kids who applied to wear Cardinal red got a rejection letter in the mail.

At Cal, the rate was three times better, at 22 percent, just ahead of UCLA (23 percent) and USC (24 percent). Yet, even those numbers suggest three of four seniors applying to college are being turned away.

Ivy league schools such as Harvard and Yale posted record-low admissions rates, 5.9% and 6.8% respectively.

Making the Bay Area situation more acute was the announcement this week that San Jose State University would no longer automatically accept any San Mateo County student who met the minimum California State University requirements, as had been done for many years.

What do you think? Are the admission standards too tough for our graduating seniors? What's the long-term result of fewer admissions? What can be done?

Take our poll, and leave us your comments.