More Latinos, Blacks Applying to UC Campuses

Amid an overall increase in the number of applicants to University of California campuses, the number of blacks and Latinos applying to UC Berkeley has dropped, according to statistics released Wednesday.

Systemwide, more blacks and Latinos are applying to UC campuses, but the drop at Berkeley--10.6% among African American applicants and 12.1% among Latinos--dismayed university officials.

“The numbers leave us unequivocally dissatisfied,” said Berkeley Vice Chancellor Genaro Padilla. “We must do more.”

Ever since UC ended its affirmative action programs, university officials have worried that the change in policy would be perceived by minority high school students as a message that they were not welcome.

UC officials were pleased with the systemwide increase in applications, saying that the figures show that minority students are not turning away from the overall system. At the same time, the figures for Berkeley--and to a lesser extent UCLA, where minority applicants did not keep pace with overall increases--indicate that the system’s most competitive campuses still may face a problem.

The systemwide 7.8% increase in applications was largely expected, given the rising number of students in high schools as the children of baby boomers reach college age.

The number of applicants seeking to transfer from community colleges or other schools rose even faster, 9.2%.

Carla Ferri, head of UC undergraduate admissions, noted that community colleges have proportionally far more Latino and black students than applicants admitted as UC freshmen.

“It’s important,” she said, “to explain the importance of the transfer route to get into the University of California.”

UC President Richard C. Atkinson broadcast that message in letters to thousand of poor and minority community college students last fall. For a second year in a row, he also sent a letter “personally inviting” about 17,000 of California’s poor and minority high school seniors to apply for admission as freshmen.

Following another trend seen nationwide, women made up 55.3% of all freshmen applications compared to 44.7% for men.

Students, on average, now apply to three UC campuses, shelling out $40 for each campus to hedge their bets.

As UCLA officials proudly noted, the Westwood campus has become the most popular in the system, attracting nearly 35,000 applicants. UC San Diego, the campus with perhaps the fastest-rising reputation, saw a 16.4% jump in freshmen applications to 31,890--eclipsing UC Berkeley.

UCLA showed a 6.5% increase in African American applicants and a 3.1% increase among Latinos, according to UC figures. But because those increases fell far short of the surge among Asian Americans and white applicants, Latinos and blacks will make up a smaller share of UCLA’s applicant pool than last year.

UC Riverside, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara also showed increasing popularity among California’s brightest high school students, each receiving 14% or more applications this year than last.

Admissions officers are now reviewing the applications to determine who will be admitted. They hope to notify all applicants by April 1.

The University of California promises a seat for all California high school graduates who meet a minimum 3.3 grade-point average, take SAT and SAT II exams, and satisfactorily complete a series of UC-required courses in high school.

But those students are not guaranteed a spot at the campus of their first choice. And given the popularity of UCLA and Berkeley, both campuses have had to turn away nearly two-thirds of their applicants.

The competition has been the fiercest at Berkeley, where freshmen last fall had average SAT scores of 1390 and GPAs of 4.27--statistically possible because UC awards five points for an “A” in an honors or Advanced Placement class.

Last spring, Berkeley officials announced that they had to turn away 7,000 students with GPAs of 4.0 or better, including 800 black and Latino students with those academic credentials.

The escalating competition may have discouraged many students from applying to Berkeley, which could explain why its overall applicant pool increased only 4.1%--the smallest increase of any campus.

Bob Laird, Berkeley’s admissions director, cautioned against quick judgment about why fewer blacks and Latinos had applied until he and his staff do a thorough analysis of which students had stayed away.

UC application figures also showed a dramatic drop in the percentage of students who declined to state their ethnicity. That figure had risen sharply last year, leading to a debate over whether the change had some relationship to the affirmative action debate or was simply a result of how the application form was laid out. The fact that the number went back down this year after the application form was changed again indicates that the fluctuations probably were not related to politics.

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Stiffer Competition

A record 82,955 applicants sought admission at eight University of California campuses for fall 1999. An all-time high of 63,446 applied to be freshmen, while 19,509 sought to transfer from community colleges or other schools.

FRESHMAN APPLICATIONS

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% Change Campus Applicants From 1998 Berkeley 30,303 +4.1% Davis 22,243 +12.0% Irvine 21,503 +14.5% Los Angeles 34,567 +9.2% Riverside 12,796 +14.6% San Diego 31,890 +16.4% Santa Barbara 26,319 +14.2% Santa Cruz 14,033 +12.0% Systemwide* 63,446 +7.8%

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* Students may apply to multiple campuses.

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BY ETHNIC GROUP

Systemwide, freshman applications increased from every ethnic group except American Indian . . .

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% Change Group Applicants From 1998 African American 2,099 +6.8% American Indian 376 -2.6% Asian American 13,177 +13.3% Filipino American 2,629 +10.0% Chicano/Latino 9,564 +6.0% White/Other 23,377 +21.4% Declined to state 3,840 -45.8% Total** 52,847 +6.4%

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. . . but applications were noticeably down from some minority groups at UC Berkeley.

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% Change Group Applicants From 1998 African American 959 -10.6% American Indian 122 -14.7% Asian American 7,664 +9.9% Filipino American 1,086 +10.7% Chicano/Latino 2,510 -12.1% White/Other 9,454 +18.8% Declined to state 2,016 -40.7% Total** 23,811 +1.9%

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** Figures include California residents only, not those applying from outside the state.

Source: University of California