Fewer Black, Latino Applicants at UCI

The number of applicants to UC Irvine grew to an all-time high this year--at a rate faster than the system as a whole--but like the rest of the UC system, the campus experienced a drop in the number of African Americans and Latinos seeking admission, according to statistics released Tuesday.

Overall, 16,718 California high school students applied to UCI for the fall 1997 quarter--which means they listed the campus among their top three UC choices--a 4.7% increase over the previous year. But applications from African Americans and Latinos, groups the university classifies as “underrepresented,” fell for the second consecutive year.

UC officials tied those declines to repercussions from the affirmative action debate, aggressive recruitment of minority students by private and out-of-state universities and lagging academic eligibility rates among those groups.

“I’m dismayed but not surprised,” said Juan Francisco Lara, UCI assistant vice chancellor in charge of partnerships with local schools.

Systemwide, a record 46,682 California high school students applied to UC in hope of enrolling this fall--a 1.6% increase from the previous year.

The swelling pile of applications, however, was buoyed largely by increasing numbers of white and Asian American applicants, masking an 8.2% decline in African American applicants, a 5% drop in Latinos and 9% drop in American Indians.

The differences were less sharp at UCI, where the decline among African American applicants was 5.5% and among Latinos, 3.7%. The number of American Indian applicants increased 12%.

The number of white applicants to UCI rose 2.1% and Asian Americans increased 8.3%.

African Americans, Latinos and American Indians made up 19% of the systemwide freshman class that began last fall, a decrease from 21% the previous year. Ethnic breakdowns were not available for individual campuses.

At UCI, fall 1996 enrollment reached an all-time high of 14,353, up 3.8% over the previous year.

UC officials suggested that some of the university’s competitors are having better success in recruiting minority students while UC remains embroiled in a debate over affirmative action.

As now planned, the University of California system will stop using race, gender and ethnicity as criteria in its undergraduate admissions process beginning with students entering in the spring 1998 semester.

Although affirmative action criteria will be used in selecting next fall’s freshman class, the issue was muddied when voters adopted Proposition 209, an affirmative action ban.

The vote came Nov. 5, just weeks before UC’s Nov. 30 deadline for applications. To comply with the law, UC officials immediately announced that they were dropping the affirmative action criteria--but then reinstated them when the ballot measure was put on hold by court order.

UC recruiters are reporting that some minority candidates believe they are no longer welcome, according to UC admissions director Carla Ferri.

“I don’t think that’s correct, but that is the perception,” Ferri said. “That is what we are hearing.”

Elsa Galvan, assistant principal in charge of counseling at Santa Ana High School, which has a high percentage of Latino students, said students still want to attend UC, but she has noticed private and out-of-state universities recently stepping up recruitment and often offering more financial assistance than UC.

“I think students are reaching out beyond public schools,” she said.

UCI officials said the declining number of underrepresented minority applicants comes at a time when the campus is stepping up its outreach to local schools, which officials say reaches some 5,000 students from kindergarten through high school.

“We had a good season,” said Susan A. Wilbur, director of admission relations. “We visited over 300 high schools and all the community colleges and we will continue to visit and give information to prepare students.”

Last year, the campus organized the Center for Educational Partnerships, which offers help to high school teachers and students in choosing an academic program that will enhance the chances of getting into UC.

Lara, who heads the center, said the campus will look for ways to raise its visibility and increase its work with local schools in preparing students to apply to the university.

Ward Connerly, a UC regent who pushed to abolish affirmative action, said he believes that UC is not the only institution experiencing such shifts in enrollment.

“The conclusion that people are trying to reach is that since the regents took away the racial preference, blacks and Latino students no longer feel welcome,” Connerly said. “If that is the case, then you should not be able to find that pattern anywhere else. But the pattern is elsewhere.”

He could not offer any immediate examples.

Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss contributed to this report.

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Irvine Appeal

Freshman applications to attend UC Irvine in fall 1997 increased while applications from some ethnic minority students decreased from 1996 levels:

*

Freshman Applications

1993: 15,386

1994: 15,341

1995: 15,242

1996: 15,974

1997: 16,718

****

Application Change, 1996-97

American Indian: 12.0

Filipino: 5.4

Asian American: 8.3

White: 2.1

Latino: -1.0

Chicano: -2.7

Black: -5.5

Source: University of California