UC Berkeley Urges Changes in Admissions

UC Berkeley is proposing to change its admissions policies to allow personal factors, not just academic achievement, to be considered in evaluating all freshman applicants.

The change would produce a more balanced and “interesting” freshman class, according to supporters. Critics say it would probably lower academic standards at the university’s oldest, most prestigious campus.

Under current UC rules, non-academic factors--ranging from unusual talents to overcoming poverty or other adversity--can be taken into account in admitting no more than half the freshman class at each of the university’s eight undergraduate campuses; the rest must be chosen on academic achievement alone.

Berkeley’s proposal, which will be considered by a university-wide committee today, is the first attempt to change admissions standards since UC regents voted to drop their ban on affirmative action and return a greater share of control over admissions policies to the university’s faculty. If passed by the faculty committee, the move would have to be approved by the regents.

The proposal would make admissions at Berkeley similar to the process used by the Ivy League and several of the country’s most selective private colleges and universities. Already, the proposal is sparking debate at Berkeley and elsewhere, with critics expressing concern that a move away from current admissions policies will inevitably make the process more subjective and thus more political.

Some critics say the proposal is a thinly veiled attempt to increase the university’s share of underrepresented minority students.

The proportion of black, Latino and American Indian students admitted to Berkeley and UCLA--the university’s most competitive campuses--has fallen sharply since 1995, when affirmative action was banned. University officials have been under pressure since then from legislators, civil rights groups and many students to reverse the ban and to find legal ways to raise the number of such students admitted and enrolled.

“Anyone who doesn’t believe that this is part and parcel to the end of ethnic preferences has got to be very naive,” said Berkeley political science professor Jack Citrin. “I’m also very worried about any proposal that would diminish the value of academic criteria at a place like Berkeley.”

But supporters of the proposal say that high grades, alone, are not the sole measure of a desirable group of students.

“We think we’ll have a more balanced, livelier, more interesting class,” said Calvin Moore, chairman of Berkeley’s math department and its undergraduate admissions committee. Based on projections done by his committee and the admissions office, Moore said, he did not expect the change would substantially increase the number of Latino, African American and American Indian students admitted.

Pamela Burnett, Berkeley’s admissions director, made a similar argument. “Perhaps we’ll be able to admit a few more students who might have some unevenness in their academic records but who could be talented in other ways, or add to the overall richness of our student body,” she said.

Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl, who has endorsed his faculty’s request, said he did not believe that the move would lower academic standards.

Moreover, the proposal is not intended as a back door to affirmative action, Berdahl said. “We are not about to take race into consideration,” he said. “We don’t, and we won’t.”

Race- or gender-based preferences remain prohibited by state law--the voter-passed Proposition 209.

Citrin, an opponent of affirmative action who resigned from the admissions committee two years ago, scoffed at such arguments. “The vision of the people running this university is simply to get more Hispanic and black students into Berkeley and UCLA because otherwise the Legislature might cut the budget,” he said.

Harvard Admissions Director Marlyn McGrath Lewis cautioned Wednesday that the process Berkeley has in mind is exceedingly labor-intensive and more difficult to explain to the public than quantitative formulas based on academic criteria.

At Harvard, as many as 30 people are involved in the final consideration of each applicant’s file, an arduous process that usually involves a personal interview, she said.

“It’s a tricky thing and one that would be even more difficult for a public system,” she said. “It’s a process that is subjective and necessarily politicized.”

Admissions officials at other UC campuses, including UCLA and UC San Diego, said they did not anticipate any immediate requests from their faculty to follow Berkeley’s lead.

Instead, other campuses seem likely to await the results of a review already underway by the university-wide Academic Senate. UC President Richard Atkinson has asked the Senate to look at shifting to a more “holistic” evaluation of applicants, one that would give less weight to formulas based on grades and test scores.

Under current UC rules, 50%-75% of each freshman class must be admitted based on academic criteria alone. The percentages vary from campus to campus, with Berkeley and UC San Diego using the 50% figure and UC Santa Barbara accepting nearly 75% of its students based on academics.

Berkeley would like to use the more flexible criteria for the entire class. “For the last few years, we have read individually every one of the 36,000 applications we receive,” Moore said. “But we want to be able to read them comprehensively for all the information we’re looking for. We want the context of each of these students to be brought in.”