Although there was a recent rise of Latinos admitted to the University of California, UCLA is slower than other campuses to admit a larger percentage of Latino students.
Hispanic students have surpassed white students admitted to the UC for the first time this year, an increase officials attribute to a growing number of Latinos living in California as well as increased outreach by the UC. Latinos now comprise 28.8 percent of the admitted class compared to white students, who comprise 26.8 percent.
But the growing number of Latino students is less visible at the most competitive universities in the UC system: UCLA and Berkeley. About 20 percent of students admitted to ULCA this year were Latino, although they made up about 30 percent of the applicant pool.
“(UCLA has) among the highest standards among the UC system,” said Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, UCLA associate vice chancellor of enrollment management. “So while we are seeing more Latino students taking challenging courses and preparing themselves for admission, we have not seen the kind of growth some of the other campuses have seen.”
Students from different backgrounds don’t have the same opportunities said Robert Romero, associate professor of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA.
“Students from richer suburbs have a competitive advantage, access to better public schools and AP classes,” Romero said. “Many Latinos were priced out of those districts.”
According to Los Angeles Times statistics, Los Angeles County schools that have the lowest SAT scores tend to have more than 50 percent Latino students, whereas the highest scoring schools were predominantly white and Asian. More students in these low scoring schools also tend to qualify for free or reduced lunches.
Dianne Klein, a UC spokeswoman, said the UC works to address this issue by reaching out to underrepresented high schools to encourage students to apply for college.
“Yes, they are applying and increasing in numbers,” Klein said. “But they are not necessarily admitted. UCLA is among the most selective of the UC campuses, with this year only a 18.2 percent admission rate. It’s difficult to get into (UCLA).”
According to UC admissions data, UCLA accepted almost the same amount of Latino students it did last year. This is significantly less than other campuses, such as UC Irvine and UC Riverside, and a University-wide increase of almost 1,000 students.
The University, by law, cannot take ethnicity into account during its admissions decisions, but it reaches out to first-generation high school students and students from underrepresented schools to encourage them to attend college, Klein said.
“We put the message out there that (the) UC is accessible,” Klein said.
Although the growing number is a positive start, Latinos represent about half of the K-12 population, and that does not yet reflect in enrollment rates in the UC, said Audrey Dow, community affairs director for The Campaign for College Opportunity, an organization that focuses on changing legislation to promote equality in education.
This is disgusting. If people want higher admission rates, they need to study harder. Adopt an Asian work ethic, and you will see Asian-level acceptances. Affirmative action is a gift to crybabies and a brutal racist act against Asians.
Affirmative action was never mentioned in the article! People who use affirmative action as an excuse to demean those who have made it are pathetic!
Affirmative Action was never a “gift.” It was a reparatory measure designed to address black exclusion from all areas of public life for 300 years. How do people forget Jim Crow was literally a thing and that in many states it was illegal to teach black people how to read?
Even as a black person, I can say that Affirmative Action has been a failure of a program. I think it’s time that we look to shift away from racial preferences and look for better solutions, but I take offense to you calling black people “crybabies.” If it weren’t black people fighting hundreds of years for Civil Rights, Asians wouldn’t have the opportunity to go to UCLA, Harvard, or any other college in America.
So because Hispanics make up around 40% of California, does 40% of the UCLA student body necessarily have to be Hispanic? Since the USA is 65% White, does that mean that 65% of NBA players necessarily have to be White? How about the people with the most skill, talent, and academic merit be accepted to UCLA instead of fulfilling arbitrary racial quotas? Why not use a merit based system? Racially based quotas and affirmative action are inherently racist!!!!
Your solution makes common sense. However there is always a group of entitled crybabies in every country. And there are always slime bag ‘progressives’ in every country willing to sell freebies to those crybabies, even if it means hurting others. ‘Progressives’ do it to gain power and many of these ‘progressives’ work in our academic institutions.
The comments on this thread below are missing the point. California is a Mexican/Latino populated state but the number of applicants in the UC system is lacking for the Spanish speaking demographic. Affirmative action is never stated on this article and is used to hide and cowardly insult those who have made to UCLA. What you people fail to realize is that the playing field for Mexican/Latino students’ entry is not leveled here.
The reason why Asians have been successful in entering the UC system is because the United States has provided Asian families with financial assistance, faced no discrimination and were literally welcomed into this country rather than invaded. They have been able to easily succeed while blacks and Mexicans have been left out. Many people really need to understand the history of why a group has been left out before polluting the internet with bigotry