(November 23, 2004) -- We live in a society where everyone whines. We whine about homework, tests and teachers, but we seem to whine most about college admissions and how they’re getting tougher. In this dog-eat-dog world, it is a wonder why people complain about something that is inevitable. For whether we like it or not, college admissions will get harder because competition is rising.

But get ready to hear a lot more whining as UC’s have boosted their minimum GPA requirement from 2.8 to 3.0, starting with the class of 2007.

While many see this as a negative change, it has its positive sides. First of all, the policy limits the number of people applying to UC’s, which for most of us is a good thing. We are competing against fewer people. Furthermore, a university has only so many open spots for freshmen and with 14.4% rate of students who met the minimum eligibility requirements last year (as opposed to the ideal 12.5%), universities didn’t have much of a choice but to raise the bar.

UC officials say that the change is likely to shrink the eligibility pool by about 750 students. That’s not a lot of students, but wouldn’t you rather compete against 750 fewer students?

Many believe that this requirement change is going to exclude students—such as minorities—who often attend schools that don’t offer GPA boosters, otherwise knows as AP classes. A lack of AP classes does prevent some from attaining the highest GPA in their capacity, but if they work hard enough in their regular class, it will be easy to reach the UC minimum requirement. Getting a 3.0 GPA, even without AP classes, isn’t even remotely close to impossible. Additionally, colleges know what schools offer AP classes and what schools don’t offer AP. Hopefully, that would be considered when viewing the application.

A recent L.A. Times editorial proposed that instead of the UC’s making the requirement for admission higher, they should disregard the one point extra GPA of AP classes all together. While all of this sounds good in a perfect world where competition doesn’t exist, it would simply not work in our society. We are all made to be competitive individuals who strive throughout our four years of high school to attain the highest grades so we can get into a good college. It would be unrealistic and close to impossible for the colleges to ignore the weighted GPA.

And if students can’t achieve a 3.0 in high school—weighted or not—it would be highly unlikely for them to succeed in college where classes are much more challenging.

So before you complain about this change, realize that it is simply easing competition and making it easier for you to get into that college you’ve always dreamed of.