Admission Requirements - Undergraduate

To qualify for admission, freshman applicants must possess a diploma from an accredited secondary school or expect to receive one before enrolling at Rhode Island College. Applicants' secondary school programs must include at least 18 units of college preparatory academic subjects, with the following requirements:

•     4 units of college preparatory English.

•     3 units of mathematics, including algebra I, algebra II, and geometry. Students planning to enter education, nursing, management, mathematics or the sciences are encouraged to complete four years of mathematics.

•     2 units of history or social science. Students should study U.S. history and government and the social sciences, which might include anthropology, economics, geography, political science and sociology.

•     2 units of laboratory sciences. Students planning to enter a technical, scientific or health-related field are strongly encouraged to complete courses in biology, chemistry and physics.

•     2 units of the same foreign language. College-bound students are encouraged to complete three years of a foreign language.

•     5 units of diversified college preparatory courses.  Appropriate courses may include additional units from the arts, mathematics, language, social sciences, science or other college preparatory electives offered by the high school.

Exceptions to some unit requirements may be allowed. Requests should be made in writing to the director of admissions.

An individual assessment will be made of each student participating in ESL study while attending secondary school. Such students are encouraged to submit documentation of their current level of proficiency in English. Also, their secondary schools are encouraged to provide such additional information as transcript annotations designating the college preparatory level for appropriate ESL sections, course descriptions and other indices of English proficiency sufficient to succeed in college.

Rhode Island College supports the efforts of secondary school officials and governing bodies to have their schools achieve regional accreditation status to provide reliable assurance of the quality of the educational preparation of applicants for admission.