UC panel urges eligibility change to cut guaranteed admissions

Parents Forum
1

<p>UC panel urges eligibility change to cut guaranteed admissions
Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writer</p>

<p>Thursday, November 1, 2007</p>

<p>A key faculty committee is recommending that the University of California dramatically reduce the number of high school seniors who are guaranteed admission to its campuses, a cornerstone of the state's landmark 1960 Master Plan for Education.</p>

<p>The committee's proposal stems from concerns that UC's current method of determining student eligibility is too rigid, making it unfair to some students. The proposal would make changes so only the top 4 percent of graduating seniors would be guaranteed a seat - down from the current 12.5 percent.</p>

<p>The state's Master Plan promises that every California student meeting eligibility requirements will get a seat somewhere in the UC system's nine undergraduate campuses. </p>

<p>But members of the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, a systemwide faculty committee, believe the guarantee works to the disadvantage of some students - mainly those in rural and inner-city high schools that do not offer all the college preparatory classes required by UC and that do not have enough counselors to properly guide students to take the required courses and tests.</p>

<p>The proposal also would eliminate the requirement that students take two SAT II subject exams to be eligible for the UC system. It would also make a technical change to modify the minimum grade point average.</p>

<p>The proposal is in its early stages of review, but committee chairman Mark Rashid, an engineering professor at UC Davis, believes the move could raise standards by eliminating those seniors who currently slide in by doing the minimum work to be eligible.</p>

<p>"There would be a slice of students ... that previously enjoyed a guarantee who would no longer be guaranteed a seat in the system," he said. </p>

<p>Under the state's 1960 Master Plan, UC establishes student eligibility by using an equation based on courses, grades and tests. It is designed so the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates statewide are eligible to attend UC. </p>

<p>Under the committee's proposal, only students in the top 4 percent of their high school would be guaranteed admission to a UC campus. Everyone else, including the remaining 8.5 percent who are currently promised a seat, would have to compete for a slot. </p>

<p>The new system would require students to be evaluated individually by each campus they apply to. Those not accepted would no longer automatically be given a slot at a UC campus with available seats, as is now the practice.</p>

<p>Rashid said that some students who may have worked hard and deserve a UC education are currently not eligible because of the very rigid technical requirements of eligibility. For example, he said, some didn't take the exact courses required by UC and others didn't take the two SAT II subject tests required. </p>

<p>The committee's proposal could widen the applicant pool by as much as 30 percent he said.</p>

<p>"There are many students who are ineligible because of technical reasons," he said. "One of the reasons for this proposal is to make these students visible to UC."</p>

<p>Faculty leaders on the campuses were reluctant to talk about the proposal because it is still under review by their members. But Linda Bisson, the UC Davis representative for the Academic Council, said eliminating the guarantee is worrisome to many.</p>

<p>"There are many of us, me included, that directly benefited from the Master Plan for Higher Education and know its value to the state as well as to the students," she said. "The state budget crisis is a real one, and we know that too - there is strong concern that the state's promise to citizens of a seat in a classroom for all eligible students will morph into the promise of a bed in a cell in prison for all eligible criminals."</p>

<p>The proposal by the committee is now being debated by the faculty and is expected to be voted on by faculty leaders as early as December and forwarded to the UC Board of Regents next year. </p>

<p>UC Regent John Moores, who has been actively involved in UC admissions issues, said he had not heard anything about the proposal. </p>

<p>"If true, it would be very disturbing," he said. </p>

<p><a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/01/BAL7SVI0D.DTL%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/01/BAL7SVI0D.DTL&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle</p>

2

<p>This post is enlightening. I had been under the impression that the ELC program-Edgiblity (sp?) in the Local context (ELC) was revamped a few years ago, and set up for the top 4% of the Senior class in public high schools, not 12.5%.</p>

3

<p>I think the 12.5 refers to the "statewide eligibility" program., not the local context program. There is also an eligibilty by test only program.</p>

4

<p>Yikes. My biggest concern is with an apparent switch from the top 12.5% <em>statewide</em> being guaranteed a seat in UC to the top 4% <em>per school</em>. If that's the rubric, I should be pulling my children out of their academically competitive magnet schools and putting them in the lackluster neighborhood school, where they would be easily able to make the top 4% cutoff. That's not exactly raising standards.</p>

<p>Also, I worry that dropping the A-G requirements means that fewer high schools in California will feel pushed to offer those courses. Plus, not automatically redirecting students who aren't accepted at the campuses they've applied to would artificially drive up the volume of applications to Merced and Riverside.</p>

<p>Mostly, I'm just saddened by how far the California Master Plan has fallen from its glory days of yore.</p>

5

<p>Things keep changing. I found the following info where SAT II used to be counted twice as much as SAT I. The year was 2005. Is this correct?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Yes, SAT II does in fact count more for UC.
The exact formula is::</p>

<p>[SAT II Writing + SAT II Math + SAT II any other subject except the other math test] X 2 + SAT</p>

<p>So, you have a 4950. I personally have a 5340 but only a 3.5 GPA. I'm willing to bet that we have the same exact chances.

[/quote]
</p>

6

<p>Yes, 99, they did count SATII x 2 at one point-bizarre how the very tenats of their admissions priorities are subject to such change</p>

7

<p>I wonder if that would, in any way, change criteria for accepting OOS students? In the past, for example, 25 percent from OOS attend UCLA. </p>

<p>Or do you think OOS would always be kept in a separate decision-making category, separate from in-state admissions concerns?</p>

8

<p>It seems ambiguous as to what they're really trying to accomplish. They're going to restrict the guaranteed admission percentage so they can have a wider pool of candidates? It sounds to me as if they're continuing to try to allow less qualified individuals in, perhaps to alter the ethnicity breakdown of the UCs for which some UCs have been criticized for when they don't use race as an admissions criteria. It sounds as if they want to be able to dip below the 12.5% at will and have a greater pool by no longer requiring the UC required courses, no longer requiring SAT IIs, etc.</p>

<p>In reality the top 12.5% only guarantees admission to the UC system - not to the UC campus of choice and I don't believe all of the campuses were filled to capacity with students from the top 12.5%. Even the top 4% of each school who qualify as "eligibility in the local context" aren't guaranteed admission to the UC of their choice.</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
It sounds to me as if they're continuing to try to allow less qualified individuals in, perhaps to alter the ethnicity breakdown of the UCs...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>UCDad: the BOARS report states that acheiving better match to the state's demographics is their explicit goal.</p>

10

<p>Well said, Slithey Tove. I'm not sure how this is going to raise standards; I don't agree with the argument put forth by the UCD professor Rashid about kids sliding in. If anything, this year, the kids will be more qualified and the 4% ELC will capture those most able at those schools he's concerned about. The top 4% at my daughter's school was incredibly competitive and one of her friends with 1 B didn't make it.</p>

11

<p>It's a terrible idea. It's also yet another attempt to get around the death of affirmative action in California college admissions. If you want to go to a college where members of the education academy make admissions decisions on largely-unaccountable criteria, go to a private school. I heartily disapprove of the UW's "holistic" admissions process, too.</p>

<p>I'm not opposed to making fuzzy-wuzzy admissions decisions, I'm just opposed to them at public schools. Even with the shortcomings of quantitatively-based admissions, I still prefer them to the machinations of the smoke-filled backroom of the admissions department (metaphorically speaking).</p>

12

<p>WashDad,</p>

<p>The problem with that is that you may end up admitting far too many students than a campus can matriculate. Imagine a UCLA or Berkeley that admitted like UCSD.</p>

13

<p>UCLAAri, they just guarantee that the top 12.5% of students will be admitted to the UC, not which campus they get into.</p>

14

<p>UCSD, however, has a completely numbers-based system of admission. You get x number of points for a, b, and c. The problem with that is that UCLA and Cal get far more qualified (based on numbers) applicants than they can even admit, let alone matriculate.</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
the BOARS report states that acheiving better match to the state's demographics is their explicit goal

[/quote]

That was my concern - that they're trying to match demographics rather than academic qualifications. </p>

<p>If they really wanted to match demographics then they'd need to just have a quota based admissions where they only accept, for example, the top x% of each demographic they're targeting, making sure that the percentages of each demographic admitted equals the same demographic of their target geography, and once they reach their limit for the particular demographic then stop admiting that segment regardless of whether some of them are more academically qualified than one of the other demographics or not.</p>

<p>I don't agree with the above philosophy. The state should focus more on the root issues behind the academic qualifications of the various demographic segments rather than masking them by just artificially adjusting the demographics of the campus through variable admissions criteria.</p>

16

<p>Call me terribly naive, but I just cannot believe there are still public high schools in California that don't offer all of the necessary A-G courses. What the heck? The California state standards were designed 10 years ago with the idea of preparing high school graduates for the UC system. In otherwords, they are quite rigorous. How could a high school get away with not offering the necessary coursework to apply for a UC? Or is it that the students are not ENROLLING in the necessary coursework (either because they don't know any better due to lack of counseling or because they are not prepared/qualified to enroll in A-G courses)?</p>

17

<p>A-G should be the norm in California...And about this, I think 4% is good enough. In a school of 500, the top 20 are guaranteed admission to at least one UC. That is plenty imo. The UCs are good enough schools to keep their current policy.</p>

18

<p>I got the impression they were trying to accommodate people who just didn't enroll in the A-G courses even though they were offered - perhaps due to unsufficient guidance counseling in some schools.</p>

19

<p>I'm wondering if house prices in a good school district will drop if this is passed. Parents will no longer pay top prices to get their kids in a competitive school district. I'm been thinking before this news whether to enroll D2 at a not so competitive high school as the one D1 is enrolling but within the same district.</p>

20

<p>UCSD-dad,
This section of the Chronicle article makes it seem as if schools are not offering the courses:</p>

<p>"But members of the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, a systemwide faculty committee, believe the guarantee works to the disadvantage of some students - mainly those in rural and inner-city high schools that do not offer all the college preparatory classes required by UC and that do not have enough counselors to properly guide students to take the required courses and tests."</p>