By Marcelle Richards
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
As of 2002, the UCLA Academic Senate is proposing to give each
freshman applicant an independent review that will place greater
emphasis on candidates’ overall achievements and not just on
their academics.
The Academic Senate, a body of faculty representatives who
handle issues passed down from the regents, is scratching the tier
system in admissions to implement a comprehensive review of the
expected 45,000 candidates.
Under the current two-tier system, 50 to 75 percent of freshmen
were selected solely on the basis of academic achievement,
determined by high school GPA and standardized test scores. The
remaining admits were selected based on these academic criteria and
other factors such as special talents or accomplishments despite
any disadvantages.
Since underrepresented students as a whole have lower GPAs and
SAT scores, the new policy is designed to increase minority
representation by accounting for inequities in K-12 levels or
personal hardships.
With the comprehensive review, the focus will be to measure all
candidates’ cumulative experience and achievement with no
prescribed weight given to academic or personal
accomplishments.
“One of our goals is to expand our concept of merit to
give greater weight to personal achievement and be a little more
sensitive to our students than in the past,” said Nicholas
Entrikin, a geography professor and chair of the Academic Senate
Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with
Schools.
While the policy is still in its planning stages, summer
meetings have yielded three modified areas of evaluation: academic,
personal achievement and life challenges.
Currently, students are required to take the SAT I, which
accounts for a significant portion of the academic review under the
tier system.
The inclusion of the SAT I score is a pending issue at the
regent level that, if omitted, will not affect freshmen until
2003.
If the SAT I is discarded, as recommended by UC President
Richard Atkinson, campuses will be obliged to adhere to the
ruling.
The reconfiguration of admissions criteria is a systemwide
work-in-progress delegated to campus academic senates under RE-28,
the measure which replaced SP-1 and 2 in May.
SP-1 and 2, which omitted race from university admissions and
hiring criteria, was rescinded by the regents though Proposition
209 and keeps affirmative action null in the state.
Vice Chancellor of Legal Affairs Joseph Mandel cites RE-28 as
the university’s way around Proposition 209. It gives each
campus the jurisdiction to change its criteria for admissions to
encourage diversity by becoming less number dependent, he said.
As applications start to pour in come November, the admissions
office will hire a temporary staff to review each submission.
The admissions office is currently drafting the formal proposal
to finalize the developments.
But some committee members feel the faculty and student body has
not been given enough say in the process.
Bryant Tan, a student representative on the committee and the
academic affairs commissioner for the Undergraduate Students
Association Council, said the committee will not be able to restore
diversity to affirmative action levels since test scores and GPAs
will still likely play a large part in admissions decisions.
He had hoped to see more dialogue between students and other
areas on campus to find an alternative to the proposed
comprehensive review.
While the committee is fine tuning the new policy, the final
verdict will come in November when the Academic Senate approves the
criteria in its legislative meeting.
The committee has not discussed criteria for transfer
admissions.