School to adopt UC Berkeley’s “˜holistic’ approach

With its announced intent to move toward a more
“holistic” model of undergraduate admissions, UCLA will
adopt a process modeled after UC Berkeley’s, which has
admitted a greater percentage of underrepresented minorities in
recent years.

UC Berkeley’s admissions process, which the school has
termed “comprehensive review,” has been in place since
before affirmative action was banned as a consideration in the
University of California’s admissions in 1997.

For UC Berkeley, increasing competition in admissions was a
significant factor in moving toward its comprehensive review
model.

“Berkeley started using comprehensive review when the
number of highly qualified students exceeded the number of spots
for those who were UC-eligible,” said Walter Robinson, the
director of admissions at UC Berkeley.

By 2006, 90 percent of the more than 37,000 applicants were
eligible for admission in terms of test scores and GPA, but UC
Berkeley could only admit about one quarter of them. These figures
are not uncommon among elite universities.

Using its comprehensive review system, UC Berkeley has generally
admitted a higher percentage of underrepresented minority students
than UCLA, both before and after the passage of Proposition
209.

At UCLA and UC Berkeley, underrepresented minorities constitute
racial and ethnic groups who make up a lesser percentage of the
admitted class than of the statewide population ““ meaning
blacks, Latinos and American Indians.

But Berkeley’s admissions process is not without its
detractors. Campus administrators said they are not entirely
satisfied with minority admissions, and student organizations have
vocalized that Berkeley’s ethnic makeup still leaves a lot to
be desired.

UC Berkeley’s comprehensive review admissions process
differs from UCLA’s current system in that each admissions
reader scores applications in their entirety.

UC Berkeley scores each application considering “the full
spectrum of the applicant’s qualifications, based on all
evidence provided in the application, and viewed in context of the
applicant’s academic and personal circumstances and the
overall strength of the Berkeley applicant pool,” according
to UC Berkeley Office of Undergraduate Admissions Web site.

UCLA takes more of a piecemeal approach, with different readers
scoring academic rank, personal achievement rank and life challenge
level separately from one another, although a specific numerical
weight is not assigned to each factor.

Readers evaluating academic rank consider grade point average,
test scores and the strength of a student’s high school
course of study.

Personal achievement considerations include extracurriculars,
leadership, work experience, community service and honors and
awards.

Readers who examine life challenges evaluate the
applicants’ “environmental, family and personal
situations,” according to the UCLA Office of Undergraduate
Admissions and Relations with Schools.

UCLA administrators have said the proposed changes to
undergraduate admissions, pending approval by the Academic Senate,
are meant to improve overall fairness in admissions.

In a recent interview, Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams was quick
to point out that the proposal to alter UCLA’s admissions
system is not aimed specifically at increasing the number of black
freshmen who enroll.

“The proposals are not meant to address this specific
number,” Abrams said. “We are doing this because there
needed to be improvement; we don’t know what the consequences
will be as far as the specific numbers go.”

At a time when the enrollment of underrepresented minorities has
been increasing for the UC overall, UCLA’s numbers are
decreasing.

Abrams said this is a consequence of UCLA’s high number of
applications, which has “raised the bar.” In 2005, UCLA
had more applicants than any other undergraduate institution in the
country, about 5,000 more than UC Berkeley.

While the UCLA administration is looking toward UC Berkeley in
order to change its current admissions system, those at UC Berkeley
are not necessarily satisfied with their own school’s
performance.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, at his April 2005
inauguration, called the drop in underrepresented minority
admissions at Berkeley “appalling,” according to a UC
Berkeley press release, and called the situation “a fight for
the soul of this institution.”

“The situation for African Americans is truly at the
crisis point,” Birgeneau said. “Chicano/Latinos and
Native Americans are egregiously underrepresented.”

Though UC Berkeley’s 2006 admissions numbers did not
differ greatly from the percentage makeup of the incoming 2005
class, school officials were optimistic.

UC Berkeley’s acting assistant vice chancellor of
enrollment and admissions, Susanna Castillo-Robson, said,
“We’re pleased, but not satisfied, with the
numbers,” according to an Aug. 29 article in the Daily
Californian, UC Berkeley’s student newspaper.

Castillo-Robson speculated that the numbers may signify that UC
Berkeley is at the start of an upswing of underrepresented minority
enrollment.

With reports from Saba Riazati, Bruin reporter.