The UC Board of Regents met in Irvine this month to discuss a proposal that aims to rewrite the rules of freshman admission eligibility that would go into effect for fall 2012.
The proposal, constructed by the UC Academic Senate and discussed in the committee on educational policy, would amend the rules concerning guaranteed admission and give students who are not eligible under current guidelines a chance to have their applications considered for admission under comprehensive review.
UC President Mark G. Yudof expressed tentative support for the proposal at the meeting and told the regents that the changes are headed in the right direction.
Later during the meeting, the regents voted to begin to take measures that would increase systemwide campus diversity among students, staff and faculty in areas including race, geography and socioeconomic status.
According to a systematic study of eligibility conducted by the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools that began in 1996, the rules governing admission not only leave out many qualified students, but also exclude a disproportionate number of racial and ethnic minorities.
“The folks on the other side of the line were dense in diversity relative to those who were being included,” former Academic Senate Chair Brown said, adding that this information led Academic Senate data analysts to re-examine the university’s eligibility construct.
Current policy guarantees UC admission to high-school students with GPAs in the top 4 percent of their senior class and to those among the top 12.5 percent of all California graduates.
The proposed changes, if implemented, would guarantee admission to students in the top 9 percent of their senior class, but limit the number of students who are guaranteed admission based on statewide ranking to the top 9.7 percent.
The university would use its standard process of comprehensive review, extending consideration to students who fall outside the requirements for both ranking-based categories but who meet an unweighted GPA requirement of 2.8 instead of the current requirement of a weighted 3.0
Under comprehensive review, factors for admission include an applicant’s special talents, outstanding performance in a particular subject and notable improvement in one field. Low family income, disadvantageous personal background, lack of opportunity and need to hold a job would all receive consideration.
“We brought forward a proposal that tries to introduce more fairness and more excellence, so we can look at more information more closely and give comprehensive review,” Brown said.
Although the proposal was written with the objective of increasing applicant diversity, several regents agreed that it is impossible to predict how the changes may affect diversity on UC campuses.
“It is truly a modest proposal because most of it will be determined basically like it is now, but there is a greater fairness and greater accuracy by bringing to bear the instrumentality of our comprehensive review,” Brown said. “We are hopeful that greater fairness and excellence will translate to somewhat greater diversity, but we truly don’t know.”
Brown acknowledged that the comprehensive review system implemented in 2001 has shown a tendency to increase diversity in admits. B.O.A.R.S. studies show that the proportion of admitted students from low-income families, rural areas and low-performing schools has increased since adopting comprehensive review.
After using new data from the California Postsecondary Education Commission to reanalyze the proposal, the regents will vote on the measure at their November meeting. If approved at this time, the changes would go into effect fall 2012.
