holistic admissions

<p><a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7375%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7375&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>it's about time</p>

<p>Does anyone know what exactly this could mean? Does this mean that i might have a better shot despite not being great grade/sat wise? Will they start to be more like privates and actually care about the person i am and not just treat me like a number?</p>

<p>UCLA is trying to fix the racial issue on campus especially withing the African American community.</p>

<p>Back in June, UCLA released the enrollment figures of the incoming freshmen class and found that only 96 African American students (20 of which are recruited athletes) were enrolling this fall at UCLA.</p>

<p>After that UCLA was giving a black eye because of all the nation wide media attention it received, the protest last year, and calls for change from Alumni and community members.</p>

<p>It was late August that UCLA finally took a stance when the said they may switch to a "Holistic" admissions process, like UC Berkeley is currently using, in which the admissions office "considers each student's academic achievements in the context of the opportunities available to them in high school, and in light of their family circumstances."</p>

<p>Pretty much these students are bright in that they have solid GPA's and moderate test scores but have come from low-income families, are first generation college, attend failing schools, and probably don't have some of the basic resources that many UCLA students were accustomed to having in high school (Enough textbooks, college planning, prep courses, availability of AP's and etc)</p>

<p>So UCLA is looking into admitting some of these kids because they have been able to accomplish a lot with very little and they feel giving the opportunities here at UCLA, they would be on par or eventually academically better then some of the admitted kids who got in because of high GPA's and test scores.</p>

<p>that's bad news for me. My ECs suck, but my SAT and GPA are excellent</p>

<p>bump....
anyone else have any idea? is this only for black folks/ minorities'/underprivileged' advantage?</p>

<p>i wouldn't mind if that's the case, sharptooth, because i am black. but i'm not as underprivileged as most.</p>

<p>i'm not really sure what this means exactly, but i would hope that this shows admission officers that we have more than just a 4.0, 2400 SAT</p>

<p>
[quote]
So UCLA is looking into admitting some of these kids because they have been able to accomplish a lot with very little and they feel giving the opportunities here at UCLA, they would be on par or eventually academically better then some of the admitted kids who got in because of high GPA's and test scores.

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<p>Meh. They'll still go to privates and follow the $$$.</p>

<p>Yeah, that is the unfortunate part about this, most African Americans will go to privates where they can get a sure admissions spot through being a URM and get a nice financial aid package.</p>

<p>why is no one bringing up the obvious question: Why are african americans still on the bottom of the economic/education/political ladder? There are other minorities who have managed to climb up, including Asians and Hispanics. Let's disregard Asians because they aren't considered a minority in CA anyway and look at the Hispanic population, who are considered URM. I was surprised to see that Hispanics made up 14% Freshman and 16% Transfer of UCLA's population in Fall 2005...compare that to 3% for African-Americans. If so many Hispanics managed to get in w/o holistic admissions, why can't the African-Americans? And let's not bring up the economic factor. You can be a good student regardless of your economic status. And there are poor students among Asians and Hispanics who manage to get in top universities with good test scores and grades. It seems to me that UCLA is willing to bend over backwards to bring in more African-Americans by adopting holistic admissions, ignoring the fact that holistic admission alone will not increase African-American representation on campus. If you look at the Berkeley stats for Fall 2004, compared to 10.9% of Hispanics, only 3.8% African-American were enrolled. It seems to me that the problem is with the African-American community itself and not with UCLA's admission policies. :rolleyes:</p>

<p><a href="https://osr2.berkeley.edu/Public/STUDENT.DATA/PUBLICATIONS/FACT.SHEET/factsheet.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://osr2.berkeley.edu/Public/STUDENT.DATA/PUBLICATIONS/FACT.SHEET/factsheet.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Wait... so holistic admissions only draws 3.8% black students to UCB? :rolleyes:</p>

<p>The world is messed up but at least UCLA is trying to clean up, mad props to UCLA for not running away from the problem. </p>

<p>flopsy, that was the same thing I was wondering, I know at a lot of private schools I visited that use holistic admissions, have a much better racial balance among their student body. I would have expected that number to be around 5-6% if you ask me.</p>

<p>
[quote]
flopsy, that was the same thing I was wondering, I know at a lot of private schools I visited that use holistic admissions, have a much better racial balance among their student body. I would have expected that number to be around 5-6% if you ask me.

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<p>Private schools aren't beholden to the many anti-AA propositions in the state of California that tie the UCs hands. They can deliberately offer money to URMs and not fear being sued for it.</p>

<p>i think media and people just need something to ridicule... i mean.. first people cried about affirmative action... and how its reverse discrimination and all....and when we got rid of affirmative action they are crying about how some minorities not getting accepted is discrimination and what the heck is a holistic process gonna do when only five percent of the applicants are black.... we might as well go back to affirmative action............. i am not racist... i know a lot my black friends who were really smart but decided go to to some random colleges..... so its not something that is just gonna change with a change in the admission process.......</p>

<p>edit: by random i mean some college in texas over stanford.............</p>

<p>I don't see why you said that you aren't racist. Nobody accused you of it in the first place.</p>

<p>well i was afraid somebody might, my school was really cool about things like this... but now that i am not in school, i try be careful and make sure i am no offensive to anyone.....</p>