- UC
Regents Letter
- This
is a copy of a letter that was circulated among the UC Regents
just before their Nov. 15th meeting when they voted for the
"comprehensive review."
Dear Regent
Montoya,As
former recent chairs of the UCLA Committee on Undergraduate Admission,
we are deeply concerned that the Regents are being asked to make a
momentous change in admissions policy without adequate briefing. The
"Academic Tier" in UC admissions should not be eliminated, for the
following reasons:
1)
We want to admit ALL of these TOP academically ranked students.
Typical
applicants in the "academic-only" tier at UCLA for example, have extraordinary
academic credentials: SAT scores of 650--700 on all 5 exams, a raw
high-school GPA of 3.85, which when corrected for an average of 13
or more honors courses increases to 4.2. If some of these outstanding
applicants (who at UCLA are in our "Academic Rank 1"), are rejected,
they would have to be replaced with applicants in our Academic Ranks
2 through 6. (Each academic rank represents about two percentage points
of high-school seniors, with Academic Rank 1 corresponding to the
98th and 99th percentiles. Academic Rank 6 corresponds to those in
the 88th and 89th percentile who are barely UC-eligible. The academic
ranking is not narrowly formulaic: it is done by a reader who considers
the courses taken, and compares ALL the applicants from a given high
school together.)
Based
on extensive research by the UCLA admissions committee--over several
years and many tens of thousands of students--the academic ranking
of high school applicants DOES predict academic success at UCLA quite
well, in the first two years and all the way through to graduation.
The Academic Rank 1 students complete an average of 15% more units
than Academic Rank 3 students, are half as likely to drop out or get
on academic probation, and are 60% more likely to graduate in 4 years.
The chances that a student coming in with Academic Rank 3 would graduate
UCLA with a higher college GPA than an Academic Rank 1 student are
less than 3 in 10. Similar results have been found at the other UC
campuses.
The
academic-only admittees not only do well at UC, but also dominate
the most difficult undergraduate majors, and still manage to earn
a disproportionate share of the A's in college. They would seem to
be the students who raise the level of classroom education, and the
lack of such students is often cited as a reason for the underperformance
of disadvantaged students.
2)
Non-academic factors already play a large enough role in UC admissions.
Up
to 50% of the admissions OFFERS are currently based on an unspecified
combination of academic and non-academic factors. This system already
results in only 40% of the ENROLLED students (at UCLA, for example)
having been selected on academics-only, since the acceptance YIELD
drops for the academically strongest students. The 60% of enrolled
freshmen who were not "academics-only" were selected by a "Comprehensive
review" in which reduced weight is assigned to academics, in favor
of various non-academic criteria.
There
has been no discussion of just how much weight would be given to various
non-academic factors, if the top academic tier were subjected to Comprehensive
reviews. Even now, admissions officers are unwilling to answer this
question. What we do know is that among UCLA's 6400 Academic Rank
2 and 3 applicants this year, 99.2% of those with "high life challenge"
scores were admitted. Only 18.0% of those with "low life challenges"
were admitted.
Comprehensive
reviews have profound problems, in practice and in principle. First,
many of the non-academic judgments are extremely subjective. As a
former chair, I have witnessed "holistic reviews" in which the political
or religious conviction of the applicant played a role in the admission
decision. [that refers to MM, not necessarily SJ.] No reader with
much humility can feel comfortable making these personal judgments.
A
second problem that is apparent to many admissions insiders is the
impossibility of verifying non-academic "information". We have little
or no way of knowing how extensive a student's involvement has been
in most of the extracurricular activities typically listed on his
or her application. We cannot verify the levels of parental education
which are so heavily weighted in the "life challenges index". We do
not even know who has "edited" the student essay! This self-reported
information can already confer a substantial advantage to applicants
who exaggerate and fabricate, thereby punishing honest applicants.
How reliable is this information currently? How reliable would it
become if the Regents eliminated the academic-admits Tier, so that
self-reported information was known to be crucial at all levels of
admissions?
The
single largest factor in comprehensive reviews is what high school
the applicant attended. After the academic-only tier is admitted,
the current system awards extra points to applicants from weaker high
schools. Thus, students who earn the same grades at high schools with
vastly different academic standards are all treated equally. (The
awarding of extra points for honors courses at highly competitive
schools does not fully offset this penalty). How will granting ADDITIONAL
preferences to students from weaker schools--as is done in comprehensive
reviews--be justified in a University system with the mission of providing
education of the highest intellectual level? When UCSD published its
10-level rank list of San Diego high schools to be used for assigning
disadvantage points, the public was outraged.
3)
The deliberation for such a radical change in admissions policy has
not been adequate.
Even
if the present system should be modified in some ways, only a small
sample of the faculty was consulted. (The statewide committees involved
included only a fraction of a percent of the UC faculty.) Why have
none of the campus Academic Senates been involved at even a perfunctory
level?
There
has been no serious study or research on the effects of including
non-academic factors in 100% of UC admissions decisions. Even the
simplest questions have not been addressed. For example, are there
any non-academic criteria which, when added to academic criteria,
can statistically IMPROVE our predictions of how well students will
do at UC? We doubt it, and there is no study that shows this.
Is
the motivation for this change educational--e.g. to enhance the quality
of the UC system--or political? Ironically, the elimination of the
academic-admits tier will not even do much to alter the ethnic composition
of the UC student body. The educational effects, however, will be
significant, and negative. By definition, if the Regents eliminate
the Academic Tier, then even our academically strongest applicants
will face rejection if they do not score high enough, for example,
in their "life challenge" index, or other circumstances beyond their
control. Such a situation is inherently unfair, and will not be accepted
by parents and taxpayers. The only way in which the Regents can ensure
that all of these top students will continue to find a place at UC
is by preserving the Academic-only tier. We hope you will feel free
to share these comments with your fellow Regents.
Sincerely,
Prof.
Matthew Malkan, 1997 Chair of UCLA Committee on Undergraduate Admissions
Prof.
Stephen Jacobsen, 1999 Chair of UCLA Committee on Undergraduate Admissions