Minorities Up 42.5% in UCI’s Fall Admissions

The University of California announced Tuesday that it has accepted a record number of Latinos and has significantly increased admissions among African Americans for next fall’s freshman class.

But numbers for the two minority groups remain depressed at the two most competitive campuses: UC Berkeley and UCLA.

UC Irvine showed the highest jump in Latinos, blacks and American Indians accepted--what the university calls “underrepresented minorities”--with 42.5% more than last year.

Across its eight undergraduate campuses, UC admitted 46,130 California high school seniors, a 10.4% rise from last year, according to annual freshman admissions figures. The increase is the leading edge of an anticipated decade-long growth spurt as the children of baby boomers reach college age.

Throughout the UC system, the numbers of Latino and African American students admitted surpassed those for 1997, the last year the university considered race or ethnicity in admissions before an affirmative action ban was imposed.

“Overall, we are making progress, but we have a long way to go,” said Dennis Galligani, UC’s associate vice president for student academic services.

The numbers released Tuesday do not include out-of-state or international admissions, a relatively small proportion of the student population at the state’s leading public university system.

The number of whites and Asian Americans, the largest groups of students admitted, each grew about 9% from last year--a reflection of the system’s overall growth.

UC officials say they have worked hard to boost the numbers of black, Latino and Native American students, which plummeted after the university banned affirmative action.

At UCI, the number of African Americans accepted increased 78%, Latinos 37%, American Indians 36% and whites 37%.

Asian Americans made up the largest group of applicants to UCI, and their numbers increased by 16%. Asian Americans make up 51% of UCI’s undergraduates.

UCI officials were surprised at the gain in minority acceptances. “Wow,” said Manuel Gomez, UCI’s vice chancellor for student affairs. “That’s a very big bump.”

The number of underrepresented minority students accepted increased from 14.1% to 15.9%, about the same percentage as in 1997.

Part of the increase is the result of UCI’s plan to grow by about 1,000 more undergraduates a year until 2010, when 30,000 students are expected to attend the school. All ethnic groups showed record numbers of admitted students.

Gomez also credited the strategy of sending letters to the top 4% of seniors at each high school in the state, guaranteeing them admission to UC Irvine. UCI’s plan went beyond one of Gov. Gray Davis’ that would admit the top 4% of seniors at each high school to a UC school, although not necessarily their first choice.

Gomez, as well, pointed to the increasing numbers and diversity of high school seniors throughout the state.

UCI’s success with minority applicants was different from that of the UC system as a whole.

Given that the UC system sent out more acceptance notices overall this year, underrepresented minority students continue to make up a smaller proportion of the admitted freshman class than was true during the affirmative action era.

Moreover, at UC Berkeley and UCLA, the system’s two most selective campuses, the numbers of African Americans admitted remain more than 40% lower than in 1997.

Berkeley posted a slight increase over last year in the number of African Americans admitted to next fall’s freshman class. The flagship campus sent letters of admission to 293 black students, fewer than 4% of the total 7,601 California high school seniors who received such offers from UC Berkeley.

At UCLA, such offers went out to 265 African Americans, a slight decrease from last year. That’s less than 3% of the 9,609 California high school students with offers from the Westwood campus.

“I’m incredibly distressed about it,” said UCLA admissions director Rae Lee Siporin. “It’s a small group and not growing the way Latinos are growing.”

The proportion of Latinos admitted across the UC system grew more than any other group, a whopping 18% jump from last year.

Berkeley and UCLA also reported substantial gains this year in offers to Latino students.

UC officials attributed some of the increase to the growing population of Latinos statewide. The number of Latinos graduating from high school this year increased 4.3%, outpacing the state’s overall surge in student population.

But Galligani notes that Latinos are applying to the university--and being admitted--at an even faster clip. He said that in the past two years, the university has spent more than $250 million annually to help minority and underprivileged students meet admissions standards.

“Certainly we would like to believe the investment made in our outreach efforts is paying off,” Galligani said.

Today, UC officials will appear before the Legislature to explain their admissions practices and encourage lawmakers to continue funding programs that reach into grammar and high schools to prepare students for the rigor of university-level work.

The prestigious university system has come under increasing criticism from lawmakers for failing to show more progress in broadening racial diversity of its top campuses in the years since the university banned affirmative action.

The Legislature and student protesters are urging the UC Board of Regents to rescind the ban. Such a move would be only symbolic, because voters approved Proposition 209 in 1996, prohibiting the use of race, ethnicity or gender as criteria for hiring or admission by any state body.

Now that admissions letters have gone out, the next phase of outreach begins--persuading students to take UC up on its offers.

Most of the best students have multiple offers, often from several UC campuses and competing private universities. Students have until May 1 to send in deposits to reserve a spot in the freshman class.

The university’s admissions policies were altered this year, under Gov. Davis’ 4% program. Davis on Tuesday credited the new program with driving overall freshman admissions up 10% this year, including “significant increases in students from rural areas and underrepresented minorities.”

But Galligani cautioned that it is too early to determine the impact of the 4% program.

The university’s best estimates show that the program, officially called Eligibility in the Local Context, resulted in about 2,100 additional applications to the university.

Underrepresented minorities generally posted the biggest gains at the system’s less-coveted campuses, such as UC Santa Cruz and UC Riverside.

UC Irvine received a record 26,960 freshman applications and accepted 16,113. The target is a freshman class of 4,200, the largest in history. Anywhere from 22% to 26% of those accepted to UCI are expected to enroll, Gomez said.

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Times staff writer Jeff Gottlieb contributed to this story.