UC Regents Assail Admissions Plan

Casting about for a way to boost minority enrollment in the post-affirmative action era, the UC Board of Regents on Thursday began debating a proposal to guarantee seats to the top 4% of students from each public high school in California.

The idea was promoted as a way to increase the number of black and Latino students by 10% in the university system.

The proposal, however, would simply guarantee admission to one of the eight UC undergraduate campuses, but not necessarily the students’ first choice. As a result, it probably would have little if any impact on one hotly contested issue--who gets admitted to UC Berkeley and UCLA, the most competitive campuses.

Nonetheless, the proposal, modeled after a step already taken in Texas, unleashed a torrent of criticism from regents, who questioned if the top 4% from poor high schools would displace more qualified students from better schools--and also lower standards at the prestigious nine-campus university.

“As regents and protectors of the university,” said Regent Sue Johnson, “we’re concerned about quality of our students.”

Regent Ward Connerly summed up the chilly reception to the plan this way: “We are willing to stand in any gate to make sure that quality doesn’t suffer.”

The 4% plan has been endorsed by some faculty leaders and two Democratic candidates for governor. Keith Widaman, head of a faculty committee rethinking admissions criteria, defended it Thursday as a way to stop the decline in blacks and Latino students without any significant drop in quality.

He cited a UC analysis showing that the formula would accept about 3,500 to 4,000 students who would not otherwise be UC-eligible, including as many as 700 blacks and Latinos.

Coincidentally, he said, that’s about the size of the decrease in the number of “underrepresented minorities” accepted this year, the first time in decades that UC picked its freshman class without racial preferences.

The analysis says that those students would not significantly dilute the overall grades and test scores of the pool of 46,000 students accepted by UC this year.

“If they have strived to be the very top of their school, they should do well at the university,” said UC’s undergraduate admissions director, Carla Ferri, who supports the plan.

The plan would make a difference at many schools--usually in poor, rural and minority neighborhoods--that now send only a few students, if any, to UC. Although many students at those schools have A averages, they often do less well on the standardized SAT tests.

Under the proposal, the top 4% of students at each high school would be accepted provided that they complete the 15 required college prep courses and take the usual battery of standardized tests. But class rank would be determined through grades earned in college prep courses alone--the students’ SAT scores would not count.

The top 4% of each high school would be called UC Merit Scholars, a term that rankled several UC regents concerned about the wide range in quality of public high schools.

“If we give them the title of UC scholars and they don’t even qualify for UC, aren’t we cheapening the university?” asked Regent David S. Lee. “Let’s put pressure on high schools to do better, not tell them they are doing a good job and guaranteeing spots to the top 4% of their students.”

Regent Tom Sayles suggested that the plan would prompt students to shop for schools where they can more easily make it into the top 4%.

“Do you want parents to be shopping for the least competitive schools so they become automatically eligible?” Sayles asked.

Although the UC Merit Scholars would not need to hit any minimum SAT score to be eligible for admission, their scores and other accomplishments would be used in determining which campus selected them.

UCLA Admissions Director Rae Lee Siporin suggested that the newly eligible students would have a tough time getting accepted at UCLA, which this year turned away 22,000 students--most of them with superb academic qualifications.

“It’s one thing to make them eligible and another to make them academically competitive,” Siporin said. “Are they going to be competitive with students who have a 4.3 GPA, 19 honors courses and 1384 SAT scores? I don’t think so.”

Besides the top 4% plan, the faculty admissions committee is proposing other measures that Widaman characterized as the most radical changes in UC admissions criteria in more than 30 years.

One idea is to set minimum SAT scores for all students--except for UC Merit Scholars--in part to combat grade inflation during a time when many student applicants have straight-A averages.

Last fall, in contrast, another UC task force suggested dumping the SAT as a criterion, as a way to boost black and Latino admissions.

Another proposal is to reduce or eliminate extra grade points that high school students can earn for taking honors or Advanced Placement courses. The extra points, which allow students to accumulate GPAs in excess of 4.0, have been used as an incentive to encourage students to take the more rigorous courses.

The extra point system has been criticized for favoring students in wealthier communities, where schools offer many more honors and AP courses.

But the proposal to end it drew a retort from UC President Richard C. Atkinson, who said the university needs to send a clear message that it wants students to take the most challenging classes possible.

“I would be distressed,” Atkinson said, “if the conclusion is that it doesn’t matter if students take AP or honors courses or if this reduces incentives for high schools to offer them.”

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The Texas 10% Experiment

Under a federal court order to abolish affirmative action, Texas universities have seen a drop in black and Latino students since 1996. Trying to boost the numbers, the Texas Legislature mandated that the top 10% of each high school be offered automatic admission to University of Texas or Texas A&M.; Even with this new approach, the University of Texas at Austin, the state’s flagship campus, saw no improvement in the diversity of next fall’s admitted class:

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White Black Latino Asian Am. Indian 1996 6,606 438 1,600 1,487 56 1997 7,492 360 1,421 1,821 49 1998 6,835 320 1,401 1,776 49

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Source: University of Texas

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UC System: Who Should Get In? (Southland Edition, A24)

The University of California is considering radical changes in how it decides who will be accepted as freshmen in the fall of 2000 and beyond. A faculty committee proposes opening the door to the top 4% of graduates from each of the state’s 858 high schools. That would mean accepting 3,500 to 4,000 students who would not now be among the 46,000 admitted to UC’s eight undergraduate campuses each year. The details:

* The top 4% of students in each high school class would be guaranteed a spot at a UC campus, but not necessarily their first choice. They would be called UC Merit Scholars.

* Class rank would be calculated based on grades earned in required college prep courses taken during the sophomore and junior years.

* Extra grade points now given for honors or Advanced Placement courses would be reduced or eliminated. Now, students can earn up to 5 points for each of these types of courses, enabling them to compile grade point averages that exceed 4.0.

* UC Merit Scholars would have to take the SATs, but the scores would not figure in class ranking.

* Aside from the UC Merit Scholars, all other students would have to meet a minimum SAT score, even those with 4.0 GPAs. Now, students with a 3.3 GPA or higher need only take the standardized tests, but not hit any minimum score.

Sources: University of California; University of Texas