Chancellor Denies Giving Edge to Asians : UCI’s Peltason Says Freshman Class Applicants Earn Their Slots

UC Irvine Chancellor Jack Peltason said Wednesday that although a high percentage of Vietnamese and other Asian-American students helped fill next fall’s freshman class, no favoritism was shown to them.

Peltason, at his second press conference since becoming chancellor last summer, brought up the large number of Asian-Americans at UCI during a discussion of enrollment trends.

Competition Even

He said some Orange County residents misinterpreted a recent news story that noted that bright Vietnamese and other Asians accounted for a disproportionately large (according to population) percentage of next fall’s freshman class.

Peltason said the Asian-American students, all of whom are legal citizens of the state, simply qualified for UC admission in record numbers. The Asian-Americans applied and competed for admission the same as all others, he said.

Asian-Americans do better in qualifying for all nine of the University of California campuses than any other major ethnic group, including whites, according to a recently released study by the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

The commission’s two-year study found that Asian-American high school graduates in California have such outstanding high school records and do so well on college-entrance tests that they are twice as likely as all other high school graduates to gain entrance to a campus of the UC system. That same study showed that Asian-American high school graduates have a 68% higher likelihood of gaining entrance to the California State University system than all other applicants.

Peltason, at his press session, said he had received complaints from some persons who had read the news story about the 1985-86 freshman class at UCI already being essentially filled.

Entrance to the UCI freshman class was virtually shut down Nov. 30--earlier than ever before in the university’s history--because of heavy demand and UCI’s new policy of trying to reduce the size of its first-year classes.

‘Wrong Impression’

James Dunning, UCI director of admissions, said at the time that Asian-Americans accounted for a high number of the qualified applicants. Exact figures, however, were not released, and a university spokesman said Wednesday that enrollment figures probably will not be available until later this month.

Dunning also said that “UCI now has the least white campus (in the UC system). We only have a white enrollment of about 62%.”

Peltason said that some persons misinterpreted the news story about the high number of Asian-American UCI applicants and “got the wrong impression.”

He added: “The reason that we’re closing enrollments earlier this year, as is every other campus (in the UC system), with the exception of Riverside and Santa Cruz, is not because preference was given to any class of students, but because there were so many more applications than we have space for. They were all qualified applications, and we had to close enrollment earlier.

“The notion that we took in these Californians of Asian descent just because they were Asian, and chased everyone else out, is wrong. I’ve had people on the streets ask me about this.”

Peltason said UCI, which begins its 20th year next fall, has to limit enrollment growth because it has outgrown its classroom space. New buildings will be needed, he said, before the university can allow growth to match the demand. Enrollment at UCI next year is expected to total 13,000.

While growth continues at UCI and at Cal State Fullerton, both of which are much more expensive than community colleges, six out of Orange County’s seven community colleges have suffered two years of declining enrollment.

“I don’t understand the reason; it’s just a mystery to me,” said Peltason, when asked about the community colleges’ decreases.

“I’m a great believer in the community college system . . . I would expect this (decrease of enrollment) is only a temporary thing.”