diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
index 7dc4436a88..05cce4ebde 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/CHANGES.txt
@@ -221,6 +221,9 @@ Release 2.6.0 - UNRELEASED
     MAPREDUCE-6010. HistoryServerFileSystemStateStore fails to update tokens
     (jlowe)
 
+    MAPREDUCE-5878. some standard JDK APIs are not part of system classes
+    defaults (Sangjin Lee via jlowe)
+
 Release 2.5.0 - UNRELEASED
 
   INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
diff --git a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/resources/mapred-default.xml b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/resources/mapred-default.xml
index 8e7e76c344..110e316283 100644
--- a/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/resources/mapred-default.xml
+++ b/hadoop-mapreduce-project/hadoop-mapreduce-client/hadoop-mapreduce-client-core/src/main/resources/mapred-default.xml
@@ -1225,9 +1225,9 @@
 
 <property>
    <name>mapreduce.job.classloader.system.classes</name>
-   <value>java.,javax.,org.apache.commons.logging.,org.apache.log4j.,
-          org.apache.hadoop.,core-default.xml,hdfs-default.xml,
-          mapred-default.xml,yarn-default.xml</value>
+   <value>java.,javax.,org.w3c.dom.,org.xml.sax.,org.apache.commons.logging.,
+          org.apache.log4j.,org.apache.hadoop.,core-default.xml,
+          hdfs-default.xml,mapred-default.xml,yarn-default.xml</value>
   <description>A comma-separated list of classes that should be loaded from the
     system classpath, not the user-supplied JARs, when mapreduce.job.classloader
     is enabled. Names ending in '.' (period) are treated as package names,