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The University of Louisville is celebrating the attainment of 11 goals it set for itself almost a decade ago. “Challenge for Excellence” congratulations can be seen on signs all over campus, and even have worked their way into almost every official event at the university.

Receiving designation as a cancer research center, maintaining 75 endowed faculty chairs and increasing federal research funding are all milestones the university has met, but earning a national reputation for quality undergraduate programs may be the goal that affects students most.

The university has been working since the Challenge began in 1998 to boost the quality of students coming into the university each semester.

“We’ve had to get away from open enrollment and move toward selective admissions,” said University of Louisville President Dr. James R. Ramsey. He said that as U of L becomes increasingly more competitive, “we should expect more from the students.”

And that is just what the school has been doing. According to U of L Director of Admissions Jenny Sawyer, the university had an open admissions policy from 1970-when it became a public institution-until 1986. “If you had a Kentucky high school diploma or G.E.D., you had access to the University of Louisville,” she said.

Sawyer said U of L began altering its admissions policies in 1986, but it was not until 2000 that things really changed. “We significantly raised admissions standards, and created a cooperative arrangement with [Jefferson Community and Technical College System] to teach developmental classes,” she said. “We could really recommend students start at the community college if we felt that they weren’t ready for college-level classes.”

After upping admissions standards two more times since 2000, Sawyer said U of L now receives enough applications each year to be able to be more selective with admitting students. “We have a policy that allows a certain number of students who do not meet our admissions standards to come to U of L as long as they show other qualities,” she said. “We have significantly reduced the number of students who enter the university through that exception.”

Sawyer said this selectivity is what now motivates many high school students’ performances. “If you’re going to be successful at a four-year public research institution, you have to come in with a level of separation,” she said. “I’ve seen kids taking more math and science, and working harder on their grades. High school counselors [are] able to say, ‘If you want to go to the University of Louisville, you have to do these things.'”

Those students who are admitted to U of L, however, can see the results of the increased scrutiny. Sawyer said that in order to attract and retain a higher quality of students, the university has bolstered its honors program and scholarship opportunities. It has also added more than a thousand new spaces in residence halls with the new University of Louisville Properties facilities, allowing the school to “attract students who wanted a more traditional residential college experience,” Sawyer said. “[We can] actively recruit some of the best and brightest across the state.”

According to Ramsey, the changes the campus community is seeing “says to faculty, staff and students that we’re really pretty good-better than we thought we were.”