First holistic decisions posted

Heading into his last semester, senior Manoo Murthy of Santana High School in San Diego can now celebrate.

With an impressive 4.732 GPA, positions as editor-in-chief of his high school yearbook and a member of his school’s basketball team, Murthy had what it took to secure himself a spot at UCLA for fall 2007.

UCLA’s long-awaited admissions decisions were posted Thursday night via the Internet, letting some students, including Murthy, bask in the idea of becoming a Bruin, while others ““ though boasting strong applications ““ were left stumped.

This year, UCLA application readers used new selection criteria to sift through tens of thousands of applications in search of qualified students to make up the freshman class of 2011.

Adopted in the fall, the holistic admissions process ““ which mirrors that of UC Berkeley ““ aims to review a student’s application in its entirety, as opposed to assessing each section individually. Using the new method, a student’s academic achievements and personal areas, such as socioeconomic background, leadership roles and life challenges, are taken into consideration all at once, in addition to the student’s potential to contribute to the UCLA community.

The move to implement a new admissions policy followed a wave of concern by community members when national media attention emphasized a discrepancy between UCLA’s number of enrolled underrepresented minorities and state demographics.

Jamel Greer, a student member of the Admissions Coalition, an organization that researches admissions policies with the goal of creating greater diversity on campus, said the coalition put a great deal of pressure on the administration to adopt the holistic approach.

“Ninety-six African American students were enrolled last year. Once that happened we knew there was a crisis in diversity,” he said, though 100 black students enrolled in the fall freshman class. “There is a big imbalance and we want everyone represented.”

UCLA administrators have said the new admissions method is meant to create a more fair selection process.

While hopeful students submitted their applications at the end of November and prepared themselves for the long wait until decisions would be announced, UCLA application readers underwent intensive training sessions, embracing the new selection criteria.

Once an application was submitted, two readers reviewed the application in its entirety and individually assigned the applicant a rank between one and five, with one standing for “emphatically recommend for admission” and five standing for “recommend deny.” If a major discrepancy arose between the two scores, the application was sent off to a senior staff member, according to the Los Angeles Times.

After scores were finalized, students were admitted by rank until UCLA neared its desired admit pool of around 11,800, the L.A. Times reported.

While academic achievements are always given the greatest weight, application readers were asked to consider students’ overall files when assessing their academic and personal merit.

But this administrative change is not what makes high school seniors feel “uneasy,” Murthy said.

“It’s been getting more difficult every year,” he said. “I didn’t think of the new admissions process as changing my chances or anyone else’s chance of getting into the university. … I was just concerned about getting into the university.”

He added that no matter how prepared or confident students may feel, the nerves are always there, alluding to his classmates who had stellar GPAs and extracurricular activities but did not make the cut for UCLA.

And while the admissions process has undergone major changes, the application process is expected to remain the same for the time being.

“My first reaction is that (Interim) Chancellor (Norman) Abrams has made some major changes and the faculty senate has made some major changes. … I’m not in a position to make any further changes in the application process for a few years,” UCLA Chancellor-elect Gene Block said in an interview with the Daily Bruin last quarter.

Increasing diversity on campus has been a growing concern at UCLA, Greer said, but it is still uncertain whether the new changes in the selection process will help alleviate this deficit.

“It may not create more diversity on campus but it creates a more true image of the person they are reviewing,” he said, referring to the fact that though UC Berkeley has been using a holistic admissions process, its numbers of underrepresented minorities are only slightly higher than UCLA’s.

With California universities facing budget cuts and steady fee increases, financial strains can keep students of color from accepting admissions from schools such as UCLA, Greer said.

To help relieve some of the financial strain, a private organization led by Peter J. Taylor, a L.A. businessman, and members of the UCLA Black Alumni Association, will begin to offer scholarships to the tune of at least $1,000 for every black freshman who decides to accept his or her admission, according to the L.A. Times.

Official admissions data, set to be released later this week, will reveal the effect the new selection process had on the entering class, particularly on the number of underrepresented minorities.