UCLA sees drop in African American registration

By Timothy Kudo and Marcelle
Richards
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The number of African Americans who intend to register at UCLA
next year is the lowest in more than 25 years, according to figures
released Tuesday by the University of California.

But the total number of underrepresented minorities ““
African Americans, Latinos, Chicanos and American Indians ““
rose from 4,730 to 5,262 across the UC system.

At UCLA, that number increased from 722 to 728 with every group
declining in number except Chicanos, which rose from 411 to
448.

“We were not as successful this year as we were in
previous years in converting admits to enrolled students,”
said Tom Lifka, assistant vice chancellor of student academic
services. “The real heart of the problem is we aren’t
getting applications from African Americans that are as competitive
with other groups.”

Numbers for other groups at UCLA changed as follows since last
year:

“¢bull; African Americans decreased from 148 to 126.

“¢bull; American Indians decreased from 20 to 12.

“¢bull; Latinos decreased from 143 to 142.

“¢bull; Asian Americans increased from 1,712 to 1,750.

“¢bull; Whites decreased from 1,375 to 1,334.

“The African American numbers are a cause of
concern,” said UC Spokesman Brad Hayward. “However, the
overall trend has been one of improvement.”

Undergraduate Students Association Council External Vice
President Evan Okamura attributed the decline to the chilling
effect of SP-1 and 2, the UC Board of Regents policies passed in
1995 that ended the use of affirmative action in admissions and
hiring.

Critics of the policies, which were recently repealed at the
regents’ May meeting, say they have created an unwelcoming
environment to minorities.

“Obviously it directly relates to SP-1,” Okamura
said. “It’s the unwelcome mat.”

Okamura said if the regents had rescinded SP-1 at the March
meeting it would have sent a message to prospective students and
numbers might have been higher.

While the number of enrollments of underrepresented minorities
at the systemwide level has increased since last year, the
percentage of those who enrolled out of those admitted has
decreased, particularly at UC Berkeley and UCLA.

The low percentage of minorities who are eligible for UC
admission is the primary cause for the downhill trend of enrollment
and the motivation behind outreach programs, Hayward said.

In 1999-2000, 34.8 percent of the 309,866 graduating high school
seniors were UC-eligible. From that pool, 23 percent were Asian
American, 20 percent were Latino, 5 percent were African American,
51 percent were white and about 1 percent were American Indian.

UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz are able to admit all UC-eligible
applicants, a luxury UCLA does not have due to its highly
competitive pool of applicants.

At UC Riverside, the number of underrepresented minorities
outnumber all other UCs even though the total campus population is
dwarfed by UCLA and UC Berkeley.

Lifka estimates that UCLA turns away 20,000 UC-eligible
applicants and admits only 10,000.

Therefore, underrepresented minorities have been distributed
among less prestigious UCs because of application criteria
established by each campus.

Based on figures from 2000, African Americans held average GPAs
of 3.67, compared to the overall average of 4.05.

The verbal SAT scores for African Americans fell 50 points below
the campus average, and the math scores fell short by more than 100
points.

With the repeal of SP-1 and 2 and the introduction of RE-28, the
UC has reaffirmed the faculty’s right to determine each
campuses’ admissions criteria, which Lifka says is even more
important than the symbolism of the repeal.

“I think things are in the works so in the future we will
not be using just academic criteria,” he said. “If we
look more welcoming, then that’s good.”

Nonetheless, Lifka said he is skeptical as to whether or not a
more holistic approach will affect UCLA, since the pool of
applicants will remain at the same level of competitiveness.

Outreach programs were expanded after affirmative action was
banned to increase the pool of UC-eligible students by targeting
the K-12 age range.

Until academic preparation is used to build the pool of
competitive underrepresented applicants, the numbers are likely to
remain unchanged, according to Jack Sutton, executive director of
the UCLA outreach steering committee.

“When the regents passed SP-1, part of the directive was
to form an outreach taskforce to maintain diversity,” he
said. “They knew that when affirmative action was banned, the
number of underrepresented minorities would drop.”

Gov. Gray Davis initially allotted $60 million to start these
programs.

The Early Academic Outreach Program and the Career Based
Outreach Program are both products of UCLA’s efforts to
foster academic preparation before college.

Recruitment strategies, such as field trips to campus, are
tactics used to reach short-term goals, though longer-term goals
include raising the overall academic performance of groups such as
African Americans and Latinos.

“We are not going to see results right away,”
Hayward said. “We’re still too early in the stage to
say a jump was because of a program.”

Though UCLA’s corrective measures to reverse the decline
in underrepresented minority admissions have largely depended on
outreach, some administrators said the program’s influence
will not be as far-reaching as hoped.

“Outreach will have its most dramatic effects on raising
students that are minimally UC-eligible,” Lifka said.
“As far as increasing competitive applicants at UC Berkeley
and UCLA, I don’t see it happening. I hope I’m
wrong.”

Socioeconomic status and high school resources will not be
affected by the outreach movement.

The caliber of high school, including the number of advanced
placement and college preparatory courses offered, the access to
these classes, as well as the financial resources available for
test preparation, are factors outreach cannot feasibly combat.

“It’s just asking a little too much of what outreach
is,” Lifka said.

RATE OF UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITIES FALL UCLA
reflects the overall decline in the rate of intent to register
among underrepresented minorities admitted to UC. SOURCE:
University of California office of the president Original graphic
by VICTOR CHEN/Daily Bruin Web adaptation by STEPHEN WONG/Daily
Bruin