Holistic process looks beyond low SATs, GPAs

As chair of the Academic Senate Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools, I want to address the claim in two recent Daily Bruin articles (“Admitted students’ scores show disparity,” News, May 2; “Score gaps stir dispute over holistic approach,” News, May 2) that the disparity in scores between black and Latino 2007 admits, on the one hand, and Asian and Caucasian, on the other, is an indication that UCLA’s new holistic review is unfair.

If one examines admission policies across the nation, one sees that the more selective an institution becomes, the less likely it is to rely solely on scores for its assessment.

All of the most selective colleges and universities use some form of a holistic review, which favors a nuanced and qualitative approach over a score-driven assessment of academic achievement.

The committee considered it appropriate, given the increased selectivity of UCLA, that it move in the same direction as other high-ranking universities.

Data are only as good as their interpretation, and the two Daily Bruin stories do not present a complete account of the disparity in scores.

First, we are told that a higher percentage of students from California schools with a low Academic Performance Index have been admitted this year.

This statistic must be balanced against another one ““ namely, that the majority of our admits, a full 81.6 percent, come from schools with an API of 5 or higher.

Second, one of the two articles informs us that the percentage of blacks and Latinos at schools with an API score of 1 and 2 increased between 2006 and 2007, while the number of whites and Asians admitted from the same schools went down.

If one examines the admit rates over a five-year period, however, one will see that the 2006 figures are an aberration due to the introduction of new standardized test scores, which resulted in an overweighting of SAT scores that one year.

When averaged over a five-year period, the admit rates for different ethnic groups are more or less the same, with Asians and whites at API 1 and 2 schools still being admitted at a higher rate than blacks and Latinos.

Finally, one of the stories claims that “black students’ GPAs were about two-10ths of a point lower than white and Asian students’, and Latino students’ were about one-10th lower.” But this purported difference is, statistically speaking, not a significant difference at all.

Sharpe is chairwoman of the Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools and is an English and comparative literature professor.

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