Regents should also OK approved policy

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Thumbs up to the UC system-wide Academic Senate, who unanimously
approved comprehensive review for UC admissions Wednesday. But
before the admissions office can move forward with a more
progressive admissions policy, it’s up to the UC Board of
Regents in the November meeting to approve comprehensive review
before it becomes effective.

The comprehensive review process would eliminate the
“two-tiered” admissions process that forces the UC to
admit the top 50-75 percent of students ““ the first tier
““ solely by the numbers and the second tier through
additional criteria. The new review would allow them to admit all
students by taking additional criteria, such as life hardship,
personal essay and extracurricular activities into account.

If the regents are at all concerned about increasing minority
enrollment numbers, they should approve comprehensive review. Such
a review will benefit socioeconomically disadvantaged students by
forcing the admissions office to consider all aspects of each
applicant, rather than just standardized test scores and GPAs
skewed by life challenges and unreflective of academic
potential.

If and when the regents approve this proposal, comprehensive
review will have to adhere to guidelines set up by the Board on
Admissions and Relations with Schools. It’s important that
chairwoman Dorothy Perry and the rest of the board uphold the
spirit of comprehensive review when defining the boundaries in
which this process will operate.

This means the definition of “merit” should be
redefined so applicants’ life experiences and socioeconomic
backgrounds don’t unfairly reduce their chance of being
admitted. Comprehensive review does not mean students who
don’t have a difficult socioeconomic background or life
experience will be considered less valuable than students who do
share these experiences. Rather, comprehensive review stresses
those factors that allow the admissions office to consider all
applicants fairly.

While comprehensive review is a UC-wide policy, individual UC
campuses should develop their independent plan to best suit their
campus needs. Minority enrollment needs will differ from campus
such as UCLA and UC Berkeley to other UC branches such as Riverside
and San Diego ““ their approach to comprehensive review should
reflect this.

But the UCs must remember that this plan, though more effective
than past and current approaches to admissions, still has
limitations that need to be addressed. Comprehensive review will
not completely eliminate inequality perpetuated by standardized
testing and weighing AP classes into applicants’ GPAs.

Comprehensive review needs to be regarded as only one step in
the longer process. We must look in the long-term toward improving
the quality of K-12 education and perhaps the best way to do this
is by revising the “Master Plan for Higher Education”
to include K-12 education as well as higher education. If done
appropriately, such a change would truly provide a “seamless
transition” between all levels of public education,
particularly between high schools, colleges and universities. Most
of all, the Master Plan will make sure that students “keep up
instead of catch up.”

But that is far down the road. For the meantime, the UC Regents
must focus their energy on the task at hand ““ approving
comprehensive review. The Senate has spoken. Let’s hope the
UC Regents are listening.