SANTA BARBARA – A move to rewrite the University of California's admission's rules drew skeptical reviews yesterday from UC regents, many of whom said they were overwhelmed by the complex proposal.
New UC President Mark Yudof said he was “very sympathetic with the merits,” but that he and others will need more time and data to absorb what would be the first overhaul in decades of the politically sensitive admissions process.
“I want to carefully assess this,” Yudof said at the end of a lengthy discussion of the proposal. “It's one of the most consequential things the regents will ever do.”
The board of regents agreed to hold at least one more public discussion of the proposal before acting on it.
For decades, the UC system has adhered to a regimen of college prep classes, grades and required SAT or ACT scores to guarantee that one in eight, or 12.5 percent, of the state's graduating high school seniors were admitted to a UC campus.
Students who graduate in the top 4 percent of their class also qualify for the guarantee.
A new set of criteria developed over the past four years by UC faculty would limit the guarantee to nearly 10 percent of graduating seniors. The local threshold would be expanded from 4 percent to the top 9 percent of a high school class.
Proponents said the new rules were designed to open UC's doors to high-achieving students who are denied eligibility because they missed a required class or failed to complete some other step.
At the same time, the proposal would expand the number of students whose UC applications would get a full review. Only those guaranteed admission now are assured that their applications will be reviewed.
“The point, in a nutshell, is simply to be more fair,” said Mark Rashid, a UC Davis civil engineering professor who chaired the committee that developed the new formula.
Lucero Chavez, the new president of the UC Students Association, said UC students support the proposal.
But regents said they have many questions to be answered before they vote on it. Why, some asked, would the plan drop the minimum grade-point average for UC consideration from 3.0 to 2.8? What specific allowances it would make for students who don't complete all the UC-required classes, and which of those students now guaranteed admission would be left out?
Rashid said the 2.8 GPA is unweighted, unlike the 3.0 in the existing policy, which includes weighted grades for college prep classes. The two are equivalent, he said. Nonetheless, regent Russell Gould said it would leave some to conclude the university was lowering admissions standards.
“I worry, as we try to increase the rigors of K-12, if this is the right message,” Gould said.
Students who simply follow the existing guidelines are qualified and admitted, regent George Marcus said.
“So that means that basically we're going to take a seat away from someone who followed the rules and give it to someone who didn't,” Marcus said.
Yudof asked for more data, particularly on the effect on minority admissions. He said the public, legislators, alumni and others will need time to absorb the proposal.
“Everybody has an interest in who gets admitted to the University of California,” Yudof said. “People plan their lives around these admissions standards.”
