A group of University of California professors on Friday proposed changing the way the UC system admits students by putting more emphasis on an applicant’s personal background.
The proposal comes 10 years after California voters approved Proposition 209, a ballot measure that banned the consideration of race or gender in public hiring, contracting and education. The report, called “UC ‘Eligibility’: The Quest for Excellence and Diversity,” was presented Friday at a symposium at UC Berkeley on the impact of the 1996 voter initiative.
UC now draws new freshman from the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates. From that pool, campuses select students using “comprehensive review,” which looks at factors such as whether a student comes from a poor family or overcame hardship.
Under the new proposal, automatic eligibility would be narrowed to the top 5 percent or 6 percent of high school graduates. A second group of students would be selected based on comprehensive review.
The report, written by four UC professors, doesn’t spell out exactly how the second group would be selected, but suggests that a GPA of 2.6 or better might be a cutoff point.
Any changes in UC admissions would have to be approved by UC’s governing Board of Regents, but supporters of the proposal hope it will open up public discussion on how students are selected.
The report’s authors say UC’s current system is unfair because students from low-performing schools often don’t have access to college prep and honors courses and, therefore, have less chance of earning eligibility.
