The newly formed Undergraduate Admissions Workgroup held its
first meeting Tuesday to develop changes to the undergraduate
admissions process in hopes of encouraging diversity on campus.
The seven-member workgroup is composed of students and faculty
working to assess and recommend changes to the current
undergraduate admissions process.
They hope to formulate a plan to ensure that students from all
communities have equal opportunity for admission to UCLA, said
Jenny Wood, president of the Undergraduate Students Association
Council and member of the workgroup.
The workgroup plans to present a proposal to the UCLA Academic
Senate for a vote by December 2006.
The group was formed in response to a sharp decrease in
diversity on campus in recent years. The decrease is due to
educational inequality in the K-12 system as well as the passage of
Proposition 209, Wood said. The proposition, which was passed in
1996, banned the consideration of race in admissions or hiring at
California public institutions, including the University of
California.
The workgroup pointed to data from various sources that
suggested there is an unequal distribution of resources in
California public schools along socioeconomic and racial lines.
They also discussed how this disparity can be taken into account in
the admissions process without violating Proposition 209.
“Our undergraduate admissions policy is not meeting the
needs of the California communities,” Wood said. “It
should best evaluate and reflect the impediments that educational
systems have (regarding) how many teachers and resources they have.
Our current admissions policy … does not mitigate those
disparities like it should.”
Students at public schools in poorer areas with more racial
minorities tend to have less access to resources such as qualified
teachers, advanced classes, counseling and even encouragement to
apply to college, said Adrienne Lavine, chairwoman of the Academic
Senate and member of the workgroup.
“Not only are there uneven opportunities between schools,
there are dramatic disparities,” Lavine said.
She said this prevents students from developing merit that would
help them gain admittance to UCLA.
These disparities prevent students from excelling in many areas
used as criteria in the admissions process, such as GPA, number of
college preparatory classes taken and standardized test scores,
said Darnell Hunt, director of the UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for
African American Studies and member of the workgroup.
“We use numbers and treat them as wholly objective
measures when they’re really not,” Hunt said.
“Some people who really deserve to be here are excluded
because they are like needles in a haystack that will never get in
on a color-blind admissions process.”
Under the current admissions policy, some students from
disadvantaged backgrounds are admitted through alternate admissions
processes such as Eligibility in the Local Context, which grants UC
eligibility to the top four percent of students from each
California high school. In addition, a policy called Admissions by
Exception grants admission to otherwise ineligible applicants based
on special circumstances.
Mitigating factors are also taken into account during the
comprehensive review process, which includes methods of evaluation
and determined emphasis on academic rank, personal achievement and
life-challenge level.
The workgroup addressed strategies to implement change in the
current admissions policy, such as additional consideration of
unweighted GPA and limited academic opportunities, to assist
students who have not had access to sufficient resources to secure
their admission to a selective university.
Additional reliance on alternate admissions processes was also
suggested.