Audit shows UC admission standards relaxed for out-of-staters

@Fish125 The point is how dramatically the landscape changed in CA after 2007 and the recession and allowance of campuses to keep their OOS/International tuition to themselves.

I really don’t think you can look at that audit, the 1000% increase in OOS/International admits at some campuses and conclude it was a “regular” change. Sure, the admit rate has ratcheted down at a lot of schools.

But the UCs are not your run of the mill private non-profit university. They have a specific mission and a legally madated materplan. They have been built on a huge amount of CA state funding and also US research funding.

Everyone can have a different opinion on how we should fund our schools and what % of nonresident tuition/admissions is appropriate, but it’s clear that things changed more quickly from 07 to 15 than in almost any other 8 year span in the school’s history.

That’s just the way it is. I don’t know why folks have trouble with that fact.

Perhaps you will be pleased that some non-essential services are being cut to save money in the face of reduced funding. For example, UCSC will be eliminating NCAA Division III sports unless the student vote to charge themselves a campus-based fee for them. However, it was already on a relatively small (for an NCAA Division III school) budget of $1.4 million, despite relatively high travel costs due to distance from other NCAA Division III schools, so this particular item makes up only a small part of the campus’ budget.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/social-affairs/20160510/impending-vote-to-cut-uc-santa-cruz-sports-sparks-outrage-sense-of-resignation

I think somebody already mentioned this on the forum.
The OOS students were only granted honors weight for AP and IB but not for honors courses.
It probably contributed to the slightly lower GPA for OOS.

http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/out-of-state/index.html

“In calculating an out-of-state student’s GPA, UC will grant honors weight for AP or IB courses only, but not for school-designated honors courses.”

I’ve read the Master Plan. Is the acceptance of OOS/International students keeping the UC system from not admitting the top one-eighth of the state’s graduating high school class? (Not to be rude, but I’ve truly lost track of this thread as it has gone from the lack of women in the engineering programs to the above, so I have no idea at this point if the UC is adhering to the 1/8 mandate. They certainly don’t adhere to the per campus Master Plan cap on enrollment at 27,500 students).

@Fish125

http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/california-residents/admissions-index/

“If you’re in the top 9 percent of California high school graduates and aren’t admitted to any of the UC campuses you apply to, you’ll be offered a spot at another campus if space is available.”

@Fish125 According to my admittedly quick reading of the issue it is a “point of contention” and the UCs claim they are in technical compliance, primarily by using Merced for a good number of admits. But I’m not really well-versed enough to know.

Again - the broadstrokes of the issue, I think, are not in dispute. The number of non-resident admits increased exponentially after 2007 at the “top 6.” The number of CA students, over all, flatlined. The quality/competition for the CA students increased (as judged by GPA, SAT, ACT - not the full picture obviously) while the quality of the nonresident has dropped. And the admit rate of the nonresident has increased - at a time when most admit rates are dropping.

Thats just fact. What we want to do about it is another question.

Not really, Steve. The state auditor has a bunch of smart folks working for it, and it reviewed both weighted and unweighted GPA’s and reported them in Table 6. In either case, the GPA’s were lower than the medians for the instate group.

I have not read the entire thread and don’t know if this idea has already been discussed…

Why does the UC not do away with in-state and out-of-state category and replace it with two (or multiple) tiers of fees? The current instate pool could largely remain the same. The current out-of-state pool could become an open pool for both in-state and out-of-state candidates would compete and the ones with the best application profile would be admitted at a higher cost of attendance. As it stands now, CA residents who do not get in at the UC of their choice end up at other states’ flagship school at OOS costs and vice-versa. This way, UCs can get their additional revenue from a certain percent of students and still give a fair chance for CA residents…if you do well you get in at a lower cost, not so well, you will get in at a higher cost.

International students may be in a separate pool as they more likely bring diversity to campus, but diversity contribution from across the states seems pretty weak.

With this method the situation for URMs etc will not be affected any more than it currently stands…it only helps those who are willing to pay the extra $$ at a school somewhere in the US.

@sevmom Perhaps. I think, though, having spoken to a number of members of the legislature on this, that there is a strong move out there right now to cap and/or reduce UCB and UCLA (and all top 6 in some circles) nonresident %. There also seems to be appetite for moving to the system they use for CA applicants where if you don’t get into one of your choices, they will offer you Merced or Riverside for nonresidents as well. And/or just generally looking to increase non-resident Riverside and Merced numbers while at least capping and perhaps reducing the “top 6” non-resident numbers.

I think the 1st is a done deal. The second will depend more on nonresident appetite to be in CA at all costs. I think Riverside could easily up its nonresident numbers with a bit of outreach. I think it will be more challenging for Merced.

Virginia has had legislators on and off for years that have tried to get the OOS cap for UVa lowered from 33% to more like 25%. It never goes anywhere. But, good luck. You never know.

@bluebayou

Hmmm… This is interesting.

If there were 26,690 of total admitted nonresident in 2014-2015 (Figure 6) and there were 12,826 (Unweighted GPA) and 9,461 (Weighted GPA) of nonresidents whose GPAs were lower than the upper half of admitted residents, weren’t there still more than half of nonresidents whose GPAs were higher than the upper half of admitted residents?

Am I reading it correctly?

I found something interesting about why the numbers regarding black students went down at UVa. The number was as much as 11.4 % a few years ago. In 2009, a category called multi racial (2 or more races non latino) was added. So, the numbers went down and are currently at 6.5 % . Some of those students would have previously identified as African American… In one year, the numbers shifted by hundreds between the two categories. UCB may have that category as well and that would also effect how their numbers are reported .

@jchan9423 ^^ Yours is an excellent idea. I hope someone with pull at UC is reading this.

California probably has enough high-stats, high-income students who would be happy to pay a higher price for UCLA and Cal — effectively subsidizing the state’s low-income students without having to depend on OOS dollars. It has the added benefit of reducing the brain drain and tuition drain to other states.

You’ll still get sour grapes from those who believe their numbers are good enough for the lower price, but you eliminate the possibility that OOS applicants are admitted ahead of California residents with comparable stats - which is the main beef here.

That kind of plan would not fly with me in any state. A main complaint here seems to be that California is “selling seats” to wealthy OOS and International students. But now, you want to add wealthy, high income instate students into that mix at a PUBLIC university. It sounds pretty distasteful to me. Higher income students are already probably full pay within the instate pool. You would have some California families paying one price, others having to pay more for the same product. Just sounds very strange to me .

@sevmom - I am not sure I understand your logic. This type of a plan simply means that the net revenue received by UCs can serve a certain number of students at discounted prices. It can serve an additional number of students at an increased price, IS or OOS. You could take it further and create as many tiers as you wish.

Such a model exists in other government services, for e.g. you pay different amount of car registration fees depending on the type (i.e. value) of the car.

I agree this acknowledging this financial reality is likely to ruffle feathers, but I see it as more fair and less obfuscated.

For 2015, according to SFGATE:

“At UCLA, 42 percent of entering freshmen who were offered admission were from outside California. At UC Berkeley, the total was 35 percent.”

from the LA times, again for 2015. Have not seen full 2016 figures yet.

"About 60% of the 103,117 California applicants were offered a spot on at least one of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses, according to university figures released Thursday.

Across all nine UC campuses, 15,173 applicants from other states were offered a freshman spot — 1,711 more than last year — but their admission rate dropped to 49.6% from 51.3% because the number of those applicants rose so much. Among international students, 15,317, or 62.2% of those applicants, were admitted, compared with 13,575, or 60.1%, last year, the data showed. "

@jchan9423 You are setting up way too much drama between high income instate families. If an instate kid gets in, they should pay instate price. They should not have to be paying more to try to get their kid into UCB or UCLA. And they should not be advantaged because they have more money and can play in that second pool. College admissions can be a very emotional, highly charged process. The issues are certainly more complex than car registration fees.

@sevmom post #651: In my experience, most of the people who use the “2 or more races” box on applications are part Asian and part white. If they could identify as a URM on applications, they probably would. Even though it doesn’t help for UCs, it does help for privates.

“Two or more races” may be reporting shorthand for all possible combinations where the applicant checked more than one of the race boxes, rather than a specific box labeled “two or more races”.

However, such reporting does obscure what combinations of self-identified race students are reporting.

And yes, there are all kinds of permutations on reporting. Some kids are checking more than one box where previously they may have been only checking one. https://news.virginia.edu/content/forum-examines-lower-numbers-black-students-uva