That article states what I said - the applications are NOT handled by the regular admissions officers on the regular time table. A special committee reviews the applications much earlier than a regular applicant, makes sure they meet the minimum UC qualifications, and approves them earlier than a regular applicant. It decides if the athlete meets the regular standards or has to be a special admit. If the athlete meets the qualifications, he can be admitted and isn’t competing for a spot with Janie from San Diego or Bob from LA, whose applications are in the regular pool submitted in the fall and hoping for an admissions letter.
Yes, they are trying to beef up the academic requirements of the recruited athletes, so they will take the athlete with the 3.6 over the athlete with the 3.0. The coach will have to recruit that way, knowing that his first choice would have to be a special admit and he doesn’t have any more special admit spots left, so if he wants a pitcher, he’d better concentrate on Sam and not Pete, because Pete’s stats just aren’t good enough. It doesn’t mean they won’t have just as many athletes as they always have, and it doesn’t mean all athletes are thrown into the general pool and their applications are processed by the admissions office with the hope that the admissions office will just happen to admit a pitcher the coach needs or the ~200 recruited athletes out of the general admissions pool of 65,000 applicants. The UC admissions office isn’t looking at two applications, one from Missy Franklin and one from Joe Schmoe and deciding that Joe beats out Missy because his SAT is 50 points higher and he was president of his robotics team, has 20 other really good EC’s and his essay was pretty good while Missy’s only EC is swimming and she seems so one dimensional compared to Joe The admissions office is looking at the file of an athlete the coach wants, who has been rated as ‘regular’ (meets the standards UC set for all students, had the required gpa and high school courses) or ‘special’ by the athletic admissions board, and processing the admission as requested, without regard to Joe’s application at all. Joe and Missy aren’t in the same admissions pool.