UC Berkeley Admissions: the Best of a Balance

This is the time of year when high-school seniors learn the results of their applications for admission to colleges and universities. Because questions have been raised recently about Berkeley admissions, I would like to provide a brief explanation.

From its early years the University of California was able to develop an unusual character among institutions of higher learning. Thanks largely to wise leadership and its constitutional autonomy, UC was able to achieve a breadth and openness befitting a state university while setting high academic standards more like the leading private universities.

The Master Plan for Higher Education, adopted in California in 1960, ratified the UC policy of selecting from among the top 12.5% of California high-school graduates. Inherent in UC’s policy is the guarantee that every California applicant who meets these requirements will be admitted, although since the early 1970s the guarantee has not necessarily extended to the campus of first choice.

After the master plan set growth limits on public campuses, UC developed policies to handle admissions once campuses reached those limits. Campuses at maximum size, it was decided in 1971, could select roughly half of their students on the basis of the highest grades and test scores. But no campus should be filled entirely on that basis. Rather, there should always be a “mix” of students within the 12.5% eligible group, and factors other than scores and grades should be considered.

That policy still guides Berkeley and other UC campuses today. It is not unlike the admission patterns at the best-known private universities, which have always selected for diversity--including geographical representation, athletic ability and other special talents, and increasingly for economic and ethnic diversity. These practices reflect the conviction that a well-rounded, diverse student body is essential to a good education.

More than 22,000 students applied for the 1988-89 academic year’s 4,350 freshman spaces at Berkeley. A number of factors guide the selection process. There are three admission categories, and students from all ethnic groups and with other special qualifications are admitted in each of the three categories.

Roughly 59% of the current freshman class at Berkeley was admitted in the first category--entirely or primarily on the basis of top high-school grades and entrance-examination scores.

Another 36% was in the second admission category--in groups that we call “complemental” because they complete a balanced and diversified class. These are also very good students and are fully UC-eligible, and before the 1970s would have been admitted with no separate process. Included among the “complemental” groups are under-represented minorities, along with smaller numbers of disabled students, high test scorers, rural students, and men and women athletes.

Approximately 5% of the freshmen were admitted under the “special action” category, meaning that they did not meet all admission requirements. The provision for doing this has been a long-term policy for UC and the state. These students accept a higher risk and get extra help to compensate for that, and many do succeed and graduate.

Ironically, it is Berkeley’s success in meeting longstanding goals that has ledto recent criticism that Berkeley has gone too far and too fast in student affirmative action. The critics imply that Berkeley has lowered its academic standards and that high achievers are being excluded in favor of lower-achieving students.

These are serious criticisms, but in my view they are wrong. They would have us select from among the top 3% or 4% of high-school graduates using only grades and test scores. A Berkeley undergraduate student body admitted only on that basis would virtually exclude several ethnic groups and be drawn mostly from a few wealthy big-city high schools.

The fact is that Berkeley has maintained its standards while achieving ethnic diversity. Berkeley’s students today are academically stronger than ever. The average combined SAT scores of entering freshmen have moved up over the past decade (from 1117 in 1978 to 1185 this year). And UC’s basic entrance requirements are tougher now than they were then.

We continue to face important challenges. Too many of our students from disadvantaged minority groups do not stay at Berkeley to graduate. But the record on that is improving, and efforts to help students succeed have our highest priority. We intend to show that a great university with a world-class reputation can be even stronger academically by extending opportunities to students from all segments of society.

Higher education at all levels simply cannot wait until social processes in our society allow all groups to start life with the same advantages and to achieve at the same rate. California is already the state with the most ethnic diversity. Berkeley and all the UC campuses have a clear responsibility to provide California with a diverse group of future leaders.