Chronicle’s Simplistic Advice No Panacea for UC System
Patrick Mattimore, chronwatch.com, Mar. 30
San Francisco Chronicle editorials in the last week have weighed forth with a variety of opinions about the UC system. Among those opinions has been a suggestion that the present ”comprehensive review” admissions policy be retained. The newspaper bashed UC Board of Regents Chairman John Moores who publicly criticized UC Berkeley’s attempts to do ”an end run around Prop. 209, the state’s anti-affirmative action initiative.”
Moores is quite right. Berkeley’s comprehensive review policy allows the admissions committee to consider factors such as where the student lives and whether the student has overcome ”disabilities, poverty, or disadvantaged or difficult personal situations.” Berkeley has used that escape hatch language to circumvent voters’ intent and admit minority students whose GPA/SAT scores would not otherwise qualify them for admission. Moores discovered that Berkeley admitted 374 students in 2002 with SAT I scores below 1000 and rejected 3,218 students with SAT I scores of 1400 or higher. Low-scoring blacks and Hispanics were admitted at twice the rate of similarly scoring Asians and whites according to a Los Angeles Times analysis.
Proposition 209 bars UC Berkeley and other UC schools from using race to give preference in admissions. According to a Sunday Chronicle editorial, it does not bar the university from striving to reflect the ”racial diversity which more than any other variable defines our state.” It would take all the magical oratorical skills of Daniel Webster in his battle with the devil to figure out how one does not use race preferences to achieve racial diversity. It can’t be done. The voters have said it should not be done. Berkeley should stop trying to do it.
There are no easy answers to providing a UC education to all the students who would like to get one. Berkeley admitted less than one quarter of its applicants and over half of the students applying with a 4.0 grade point average were rejected according to statistics for the 2002 freshman class. UC competition for admission is generally brutal and at Berkeley (and UCLA) it is especially intense. But, the news is not all that bleak if one looks inside the numbers a little.
Since the passage of Prop 209 in 1996, minority admissions at UC campuses have actually increased. In 1995 a total of 4,693 black, Latino, and American Indian freshman were admitted to one of the UC schools. In 2002 that number was 5,382. What happened is that while minority admissions at Berkeley and UCLA declined, admissions at some of the less competitive UC schools, such as Riverside, increased. When the new campus at UC Merced opens, that trend will increase even more.
There are several problems with providing places for less qualified applicants at Berkeley and UCLA. First, the policy punishes more qualified applicants and in my family’s case, it’s personal. My daughter was a 3.7-plus student at a public performing arts high school who tested in the top 8% on the ACT (UC’s accept either SAT I or ACT) with a perfect score in English. She was designated by the Advanced Placement Board at ETS as an AP scholar, based upon her scores on AP exams. She had the lead in her school’s spring musical and she was classified as a special education student based upon a learning disability discovered when she was younger. She was rejected last year at UCLA and ended up going to the University of Toronto. As far as I’m concerned, there’s a student with my daughter’s seat in Westwood right now.
Second, comprehensive review furthers a subjective policy that is unfair to those qualified minorities that it accepts. Those minority students who earn their way solely by grades and tests are forever judged with suspicion by their peers and may doubt themselves as well.
Third, as Moores pointed out, the dropout rate for students with SAT I scores of less than 1,000 was twice the rate of the rest of their class in 2002-2003. One must presume that these less qualified students simply could not cut it and did not belong at Berkeley in the first place.
Fourth, schools such as Berkeley and other UC’s have offered remedial English programs for a number of years. All incoming freshman must test in advance to prove that they do not need such a course. Given the state’s budget mess, these courses are some of the ones that the governor is considering cutting. Remedial English classes most naturally impact the lowest performing students that Berkeley admits. As one of the most competitive universities in the country, Berkeley should not have to provide bonehead English classes to unqualified admittees.
My suggestion is that the UC system begin by raising its minimum requirements, at least at schools like Berkeley and UCLA. Students with 2.8 GPA’s should not be admitted when the average accepted applicant’s GPA is over 4.0. Once UC has established a pool of qualified applicants based upon GPA/SAT/ACT scores solely, the individual universities should have a separate qualifying test. Rank the students based solely upon that test and begin admitting students according to their rank. If the schools wish to admit students who do not otherwise qualify based upon special talents, such as in the area of performing arts or athletics, establish separate colleges within the universities for those students.
Fairness dictates that Berkeley abolish its comprehensive review policy. The Chronicle is wrong to suggest that it is appropriate to socially engineer and foster a racial diversity policy that is contrary to the majority will and the law.
Patrick Mattimore is a former high school teacher and lawyer in San Francisco. He receives e-mail at: psychout@msn.com