UC regents to vote on admission standards
Plan would change rules for guaranteed enrollment</p>
<p>By James P. Sweeney
2:00 a.m. February 1, 2009</p>
<p>OVERVIEW
Background: The University of California relies on a composite of grades and test scores and a regimen of required courses to identify the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates who are guaranteed admission to a UC campus. </p>
<p>What’s changing: The UC Board of Regents on Wednesday will consider major revisions to the freshmen admissions rules. </p>
<p>The future: The percentage of students guaranteed admission could shrink while an even larger group of students would receive comprehensive reviews of their applications.
SACRAMENTO — The most sweeping overhaul of the University of California’s undergraduate admissions rules in a half-century will go before regents for a vote Wednesday amid fresh skepticism of the plan. </p>
<p>UC President Mark Yudof has forewarned regents that the decision will be “one of the most consequential” they will make as members of the university’s governing board. </p>
<p>For thousands of accomplished California high school seniors, it could open a campus door that otherwise would have been closed to them. For lower-achieving students who might have been admitted under existing rules, UC would no longer be an option. The new rules would take effect starting in fall 2012. </p>
<p>Although approval is expected, the proposal faces a new round of questions as well as lingering suspicions that it represents an attempt to skirt the affirmative-action ban decreed by the 1996 initiative Proposition 209. </p>
<p>The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office delivered a blunt critique of the proposal last month, calling it “a radical departure from past practice.” </p>
<p>In contrast, UC faculty members who spent four years developing and refining the proposal say it will bring flexibility to a rigid set of criteria. </p>
<p>“It was designed to do one thing and one thing only, and that is to be more fair,” said Mark Rashid, a UC Davis civil engineering professor who chaired the committee that developed the guidelines. </p>
<p>Yudof has embraced the proposal and will recommend its approval to regents, who have studied the details and potential effects in four meetings over the past seven months. </p>
<p>For much of the past 50 years, UC has sought to guarantee admission to the top 12.5 percent of the state’s high school graduating class, following a target set in the state’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education. </p>
<p>The UC promise also is extended to the top 4 percent of each high school’s senior class. </p>
<p>To qualify, students must take a regimen of college prep classes, maintain a minimum 3.0 grade point average and take the SAT or ACT and at least two SAT subject exams in courses such as math, chemistry or a foreign language. </p>
<p>Those who qualify are guaranteed enrollment in one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses, though not necessarily the campus of their choice. </p>
<p>The new criteria would restrict the admission guarantee to the top 9 percent statewide and the top 9 percent of each school’s graduating class. The two groups combined would amount to 10.1 percent of the state’s graduating class, according to UC projections. </p>
<p>The balance of the 12.5 percent target would be drawn from a large new pool of students – a second tier representing 11.6 percent of high school graduates – who would be guaranteed a comprehensive review of their applications. </p>
<p>Under the existing system, most students not deemed eligible for the admissions guarantee are rejected automatically without review. </p>
<p>Finally, the new rules would eliminate the requirement to take the SAT subject tests, which UC officials say have little value in predicting which students will do well at the university. </p>
<p>Rashid said the new criteria would provide a second chance, through a thorough review, to thousands of high-achieving students who otherwise would be rejected because they failed to take a required class or the SAT subject tests. </p>
<p>But for all those who get in thanks to a review, others at the lower end of the pool will have to look elsewhere. As a UC memo notes, the proposal “makes modest changes in who would be deemed eligible, not how many.” </p>
<p>Yudof has told regents the new policy would bring UC in line with most universities. </p>
<p>“California was odd because you’re either eligible or ineligible,” he explained during a regents’ briefing last fall. “If you’re eligible, you have a shot. If you’re ineligible, you’re out. This creates an ‘under review’ category . . . where you still have a shot.” </p>
<p>But others are not convinced the new guidelines are necessary or much of an improvement. </p>
<p>The legislative analyst questioned the proposal’s rationale, adherence to the Master Plan, potential costs and effects on the ethnic makeup of the expanded eligibility pool. </p>
<p>“Given these significant concerns, it is not clear why the Legislature would want to countenance such a radical departure from past practice without meaningful deliberation on this matter,” concluded Steve Boilard, director of the analyst’s higher education team. </p>
<p>The Legislature does not have discretion over UC policies but must approve the university budget and could apply political pressure in that process. </p>
<p>Boilard argued that the new rules would have UC drawing from roughly the top 22 percent of high school graduates, not the top 12.5 percent target set by the Master Plan. </p>
<p>The analyst’s assessment was aired publicly for the first time last week at a hearing requested by Assemblyman Joe Coto, a San Jose Democrat and past chairman of the Legislature’s Latino Caucus. </p>
<p>Coto and leaders of the African-American and Asian-Pacific Islander caucuses wanted to know whether the new rules would help or hurt underrepresented minorities. </p>
<p>That’s unclear, though the UC’s analysis shows the larger group of students who would be entitled to review will be more diverse than UC’s current eligibility pool. </p>
<p>The California Association of Scholars, an independent group of academics, blasted the proposal in letters widely distributed over the past two weeks. </p>
<p>Jack Citrin, a UC Berkeley political science professor and member of the association’s board, said he has “no doubt” the proposal is an attempt to skirt the strictures of Proposition 209. </p>
<p>“This is just a further diminution of the weight given academic criteria in the admissions process,” Citrin said. “Some people may accept that as a price that has to be paid for other social goals, but it seems to me that is not a step that you take lightly or without proper analysis.” </p>
<p>Rashid, the primary architect of the new guidelines, bristles at the criticism. He said the proposal was not designed to increase diversity and it’s largely unknown how it ultimately may affect the university’s ethnic makeup. </p>
<p>He said the existing criteria disqualify many students who have “much higher” grade point averages and SAT scores than other students who are declared eligible simply because they took the SAT subject tests. </p>
<p>Thousands of students could make themselves eligible simply by paying for two SAT subject tests and signing in on test day, Rashid said. </p>
<p>“They wouldn’t have to take anything. All they have to do is register as present and pay. They would get a 200 on those subject tests and that kind of ridiculous behavior would make them eligible. </p>
<p>“So, clearly, what we are doing now is nobody’s idea of a good way to figure out who’s in the top 12.5 percent.” </p>
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