<p>I gathered the information below because a student pointed me to some alarming information pulled from a report ("Policy for Frosh Admission Holistic Review" May 27, 2011) submitted by the Committee on Admissions & Financial Aid to the UCSC Academic Senate:
Use of UCLA and UCB Holistic Scores</p>
<p>Students who have applied to both UCSC and either UCB or UCLA will not be read again by UCSC readers, saving substantial resources that would be considered duplicative in nature. UCSC would accept the read from UCB/UCLA to be equal to our own campus score. In the case where an applicant has both a UCB and a UCLA score, those two scores would be averaged. By adopting this method of using other campus' holistic scores, the work load for the Admissions staff will be reduced. More importantly, UCSC reviewers will then be able to concentrate on reading applicants who either did not apply to UCB/UCLA, or those who received a UCB/UCLA score that requires a UCSC tie-break review.</p>
<p>Once UCSC's admission target is set (this is the number of offers of admission needed to achieve the campus‟s enrollment target for any given term), a UCB holistic score and a UCLA holistic score would be considered exactly the same as the UCSC holistic score. UCSC readers will read all applications which will not be read at UCB or UCLA. The lower the holistic score, the higher the chance for admission. When the holistic scoring band would yield too many admits, UCSC will employ tie-breaking procedures (see below) that weight certain factors more heavily. These factors embody criteria that are highly valued by UCSC's faculty.
<p>What it means is that UCSC considers the UCB and UCLA holistic reading and scoring criteria to be similar enough to their own that they see no reason to duplicate the effort.</p>
<p>Think of it like a UC-specific “standardized test”, although one significantly more complex in evaluation than robot-gradable tests like the SAT and ACT.</p>
<p>In reading the original document I see that UCSC actually admits over 90% of the applicants with holistic scores in the bottom 50% for UCB & UCLA. Not so alarming after all, and perhaps a step in the right direction. I would like to see a single panel of readers for all campuses with more reads per application.</p>
<p>Based on the table on page 2 of that document, it appears that UCLA readers appear to grade a little easier than UCB readers, since more students have a better score from UCLA than UCB than vice-versa, although a large percentage get identical scores from UCLA and UCB.</p>
<p>What is so alarming about this? They receive tremendous amounts of applications and so they are being efficient and showing trust in their colleagues. I don’t get what is wrong with this.</p>
<p>Well, if anything is alarming it is the lack of transparency in this process. This is from the web site for 2012-2013 admissions:</p>
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<p>It says UCSC uses 14 criteria, it doesn’t say UCLA/UCB evaluates these criteria then give a single score to UCSC. They need to clearly state their current policy on the admissions web site.</p>
<p>What is alarming is that there are students who are highly qualifid for UCSC and being turned down simply because they are taking a chance on a stretch school and scored low compared to other students applying to UCLA or USB. A 4.0 student with an 1880 on the SATs would probably be a 2 at UCSC and get in easily, but is only a 4 at UCB and gets turned down from both, not fair to the student or the school.</p>
<p>Before the UCs adopted this new admissions strategy, there were concerned that the UCs would not be able to review more applicants by eliminating SAT subject tests. Now it is no longer a concern, it is true.</p>
<p>That’s not what it means. UCSC would be using the same scores, but setting lower (numerically higher) thresholds. Whereas an applicant at UCB or UCLA may need a 1 or maybe a 2 score to be admitted, the same applicant could gain admission to UCSC with a 3 or 4 score (1 to 5 scale, 1 being the best).</p>
<p>As long as the readers at all schools score consistently (i.e. the same application would get the same score from readers at all schools), then it is not too much different from the use of standardized tests.</p>
<p>Each school is supposed to evaluate each application individually which is what we paid for when our kids applied. UCSC did not evaluate the applications as promised, yet they took our money as if they had. I’d like my $60.00 back!</p>
<p>I agree that if the same application receives the same score at both UCSC and UCB, then there is no concern. However, this assumption appears to be flawed. </p>
<p>The academic senate minutes mentioned by Ms. Sun include a table comparing UCSC admissions decisions to UCB/UCLA holistic review scores for 2010. About 25% of joint UCSC/UCB applicants received a score of 1, 2, or 3. In contrast, UCSC definitions indicate that 50% of applicants should receive a score less than 4. The obvious conclusion is that joint UCB/UCSC applicants are more likely to recieve a score of 4, and thus move to the tie-breaking criteria. These criteria or more restrictive than the 14 evaluation criteria, and thus may result in denial for a student that would have been admitted had their application only been submitted to UCSC.</p>
<p>It would appear that using the UCB review scores had unanticipated, and potentially negative, consequences for joint applicants.</p>
<p>What they should do is throw in at least a sample of applicants who were scored at UCB and UCLA into the UCSC readers’ queue of applications to read (without revealing that they also applied to UCB and/or UCLA) as a check to see that the scoring is consistent.</p>
<p>Thus far, everyone that i’ve talked to (~25 people) at my school who were waitlisted/rejected from UCSC (~4.0 UC GPA, ~1900-2200 SAT) have been rejected from UCLA. They applied to both UCB and UCLA as well. As far as I can tell, this only supports the fact that UCSC did not reject people who were overqualified (possibly qualified for UCB/UCLA).</p>
<p>I like the idea of creating a lawsuit against the University of California PUBLIC school system. We pay $60 (I think it may be more?) for each application, and for them not to individually evaluate the application, yet stating that they do is ridiculous. I get that schools want to be “efficient”, however the UC’s are sharing information without the individual’s consent and are faulty by saying that they review each application individually etc. (clearly they do not) This whole UC system needs to be fixed quick, it’s publically funded not private so people have all the right to have a voice and be involved in this education system. After all california residents pay there taxes…maybe not the corporations but the people do.</p>
<p>UCSC made no guarantees about how it evaluates the application. Conceptually, it is basically just using the result of a “standardized test”, which is the UCB / UCLA application reading score. Would you have similar objection if they just changed the process to use another quick and easy criteria like a formula of SAT/ACT and GPA?</p>