Category: admissions

Tradition!

The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) has issued a report on UC and CSU funding.  LAO is usually viewed as a neutral agency.  But it is a component of the legislature.  So it tends to favor approaches that add to legislative control as opposed to, say, gubernatorial control.  This report is no exception.

LAO seems to want to return to what it terms the “traditional” approach to funding, but with bells and whistles added to monitor legislative goals.  The traditional approach seems to be one focused on undergraduate enrollment.  But in fact the tradition – such as it is – has been to forget about tradition and cut the budget during state budget crises, in the knowledge that UC and CSU can raise tuition.  Indeed, as the chart above indicates, these traditional deviations from tradition dominate tuition decisions.

The LAO is uncomfortable with the habit of the governor of just proposing dollar increases not linked to enrollment and then extracting some promises from the university to do this or that, e.g., to spend $10 million on online education.

It might be noted that since LAO chose to lump UC and CSU together, it might have discussed a sore point namely the fact that CSU, as a part of CalPERS, gets its pension costs taken care of by the state whereas the state likes to stand aloof from the UC pension and its costs.

You can read the report at http://lao.ca.gov/reports/2014/education/higher-ed-budgetary-practices/budgetary-practices-021114.pdf

In any case, there is much nostalgia for tradition, albeit with some uncertainty as to what that is.  Sounds familiar!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw?feature=player_detailpage]

What a DC Fly on the Wall Probably Didn’t Hear

UC prez Napolitano attended her former boss’s conference on higher ed in DC last week.  From the LA Times:

Obama encourages economic diversity in higher education: 
The president and first lady are joined at a White House summit by others who have made commitments to help increase college accessibility for low-income students. California schools are well represented.
More than 100 colleges and universities, including several in California, promised Thursday to try to attract more low-income students by strengthening relationships with high schools and community colleges, increasing access to advisors and offering more remedial programs…
Each of the nine University of California undergraduate campuses will expand outreach to low-income high school and community college students and increased financial and academic support, according to officials…
Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-obama-college-20140117,0,5349627.story
What a fly on the wall at the event probably didn’t hear was discussion of the fact that the big jump in tuition at UC and other public universities was the result of the Great Recession and the sluggish economic recovery thereafter.  State funding – not just in California – was cut back for public higher ed as tax revenues declined.  There likely was little discussion of effective steps at the federal level to prevent a recurrence.  So while more efficiencies in delivery of higher ed are always of interest, big negative macro shocks to the economy are much more a factor in threats to access.  It’s a question of orders of magnitude.
Of course, yours truly wasn’t actually there, but it would have been interesting to hear:
 

Let Me In, Please

Apparently, freshman applications to UC are up significantly, especially to UCLA:

…Once again, UCLA was the most popular choice in the system, garnering 86,472 freshman applications, up 7.5% from last year; next was UC Berkeley, 73,711; up 8.9%. San Diego was third with 73,437; Santa Barbara received 66,756; Irvine; 66,426; Davis, 60,496; Santa Cruz, 40,687; Riverside, 34,899; and Merced, 15,264… Latinos made up the largest share of UC frosh applicants who are California residents:  32.7%.  Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders made up 31.7% of that group; whites, 26.2%; African Americans, 5.9%.

Transfer Program With UCLA (or not)

On the one hand, there is an article that says UCLA has joined a for-profit program to encourage community college transfers:

The for-profit company Quad Learning announced Friday it has recruited UCLA and Occidental College to be part of a national community college transfer alliance — but the program doesn’t come cheap. For about twice the cost of regular tuition, American Honors gives community college students extra support, coaching and smaller classes to help them transfer to 27 partner universities, including Purdue University and Ohio State.Chris Romer, co-founder of American Honors, said the universities have agreed to be “transfer friendly” to American Honors students…

Full article at http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2013/12/14/15403/two-california-colleges-part-of-new-for-profit-col/

On the other hand, when you go to the reported source for this article, it is a NY Times report that makes no mention of UCLA:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/education/top-students-at-community-colleges-to-have-chance-to-raise-ambitions.html

An article in Inside Higher Ed makes the same assertion as in the excerpt quoted above:

…Twenty-seven colleges, including highly selective private colleges such as Amherst and Swarthmore Colleges and selective publics like Purdue University and the University of California at [sic] Los Angeles, have joined the American Honors Network, in which they have agreed (with varying degrees of commitment) to recruit and enroll students transferring from the honors colleges established by the network’s two-year partners…

Full article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/13/major-2-year-colleges-and-selective-4-year-institutions-create-national-transfer

Not clear what the qualifier “with varying degrees of commitment” means.  So is this corporate hype?  Or is there a real program with UCLA?  If you Google “UCLA” and “Quad Learning,” you will find the Inside Higher Ed article and the article excerpted at the top of this posting, but not more.

If you Google “UCLA” and “American Honors” and “community colleges,” all you find is a website from the company that says some students who went through the program have gotten into UCLA.  But that statement – reproduced below – by itself doesn’t mean there is any formal program with UCLA.  (Some former Boy Scouts have gotten into UCLA, but that doesn’t mean UCLA has a program with the Boy Scouts.)

…Students from the first American Honors class have applied and been accepted to some of the most prestigious universities in the world for transfer, including Stanford, Vanderbilt, UCLA, University of Washington, Cornell University, and more…

Excerpt above from http://ccs.americanhonors.org/international/.

Community College Transfers to UCLA

Yours truly came across a news article indicating that Santa Monica College provided more undergraduate transfers to UC than any othre community college.  You can find the article at:

http://www.smmirror.com/articles/News/Santa-Monica-College-Number-One-In-Transfers-To-University-Of-California/39064

So he poked around the website for the community college system to find out which community colleges led in transfers to UCLA.  The pie chart above shows the results for all community colleges providing at least 100 transfers in academic year 2012-13.  [Click on the chart to enlarge and clarify.]  More than half of the transfers came from colleges providing under 100 students.  Santa Monica was again the leading transfer institution with Pasadena a distant second.  FYI.

A Berkeley Admissions Dossier Reader Tells All

Yours truly confesses he missed an August 1 article in the NY Times concerning the UC-Berkeley admissions process (which undoubtedly applies to UCLA as well).  The article gets into the sensitive area of admissions in the post-Prop 209 era.  [Prop 209 bans affirmative action in admissions.]  Since you may also have missed it, here is an excerpt below with a link to the full article:

A HIGHLY qualified student, with a 3.95 unweighted grade point average and 2300 on the SAT, was not among the top-ranked engineering applicants to the University of California, Berkeley. He had perfect 800s on his subject tests in math and chemistry, a score of 5 on five Advanced Placement exams, musical talent and, in one of two personal statements, had written a loving tribute to his parents, who had emigrated from India…  The reason our budding engineer was a 2 on a 1-to-5 scale (1 being highest) has to do with Berkeley’s holistic, or comprehensive, review, an admissions policy adopted by most selective colleges and universities. In holistic review, institutions look beyond grades and scores to determine academic potential, drive and leadership abilities. Apparently, our Indian-American student needed more extracurricular activities and engineering awards to be ranked a 1…  when I asked about an Asian student who I thought was a 2 but had only received a 3, the officer noted: “Oh, you’ll get a lot of them.” She said the same when I asked why a low-income student with top grades and scores, and who had served in the Israeli army, was a 3. Which them? I had wondered. Did she mean I’d see a lot of 4.0 G.P.A.’s, or a lot of applicants whose bigger picture would fail to advance them, or a lot of Jewish and Asian applicants (Berkeley is 43 percent Asian, 11 percent Latino and 3 percent black)? …

Full article at mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/education/edlife/lifting-the-veil-on-the-holistic-process-at-the-university-of-california-berkeley.html

Alternative Entrance

From the Daily Bruin:

University of California student leaders are proposing a new admissions criterion that would give preference to applicants from low-income schools that have special partnerships with UC campuses. Under the criterion, UC campuses would look at whether an applicant comes from a Title I high school – a school that serves a significant number of low-income students – or a community college with low transfer rates that has a partnership with a UC campus. The partnerships would involve academic preparation and outreach programs that the UC would create for these schools. Students proposing the new factor, including UC student regent Cinthia Flores and Undergraduate Students Association Council External Vice President Maryssa Hall, say it would reinforce what they believe is the UC’s responsibility to ensure that students from disadvantaged backgrounds make it to college. They also say it will help the UC’s focus on recruiting in-state students instead of admitting out-of-state and international students to increase revenue, a strategy the UC has utilized in the past few years since nonresidents are required to pay more in tuition…

George Johnson, chair of the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools – a committee of UC faculty that recommends admissions criteria to the UC Academic Senate – said some of the existing admissions factors may already serve the purpose that the proposed factor aims to address… Since a majority of state schools already receive Title I funding, a school’s Title I status might also not be a very distinguishing factor in finding schools to partner with, Johnson said. In the 2010-11 year, about 60 percent of public schools in California received Title I funding…

Full story at http://dailybruin.com/2013/10/22/uc-student-leaders-propose-new-admissions-criterion/ 

Affirmative Action Case at Supreme Court

Blog readers will undoubtedly know that the U.S. Supreme Court is looking at the constitutionality of  Michigan ballot proposition that bans affirmative action in, among other things, public university admissions.  The Michigan proposition was a copy of California’s Prop 209.  Were the Michigan proposition voided, the same would likely happen to Prop 209.  Most observers seem to expect the court to uphold the Michigan proposition.  Prop 209 followed the UC Regents’ action banning affirmative action in admissions.  (The Regents later repealed their ban after 209 was enacted on the grounds that it was redundant.)

Inside Higher Ed has an article about the Court’s consideration of the case at
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/16/supreme-court-justices-appear-skeptical-overturning-michigan-ban-affirmative-action

It also has a related article on other preferences the Court debated in the Michigan case such as preferences for children of alumni.  See
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/16/unexpected-exchange-supreme-court-alumni-child-preferences

You can see a video of the UC Regents and its enactment of a ban on affirmative action below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBB1vM6RNZA?feature=player_detailpage]

You probably forgot to plan your celebrations but…

…today is Admission Day.  No, it doesn’t refer to getting into UCLA.  See below:

In February of 1848, Mexico and the United States signed a treaty which ended the Mexican War and yielded a vast portion of the Southwest, including present day California, to the United States. Several days earlier, January 24, 1848, gold had been discovered on the American River near Sacramento, and the ensuing gold rush hastened California’s admittance to the Union.  With the Gold Rush came a huge increase in population and a pressing need for civil government.  In 1849, Californians sought statehood and, after heated debate in the U.S. Congress arising out of the slavery issue, California entered the Union as a free, nonslavery state by the Compromise of 1850.  California became the 31st state on September 9, 1850…

More at http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23856 

And the appropriate song:


Maybe they are not celebrating in Sacramento since, according to the Bee:
Roughly 150,000, or one in five, Sacramento-area middle-aged adults did not have sex during the last 12 months, according to the results of a new UCLA health survey…

Full story at http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/09/5695545/one-in-five-sacramento-middle.html

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/09/09/5695545/one-in-five-sacramento-middle.html#storylink=cpy

Supreme Court Challenge to Michigan Proposition Could Void Prop 209

Prop 209, banning affirmative action in public university admissions, was passed by California voters in 1996.  The final vote count in favor was actually slightly higher than the chart here – from preliminary data shortly after the election – shows.  (54.6% yes rather than 54.5%.) 

Prop 209’s history goes back to an earlier action by the Regents banning affirmative action at UC.  (The Regents later repealed the ban but, by that time, Prop 209 took precedence and the repeal had no effect.)

The LA Times today carries a report of a challenge at the Supreme Court to a similar proposition in Michigan and indicates that a voiding of the Michigan ban would likely apply (would likely void) Prop 209.  California’s attorney general supported the challenge. [Excerpt]

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris urged the Supreme Court on Friday to strike down a Michigan voter initiative that bans “preferential treatment” based on race in its state colleges and universities, a ruling that would likely invalidate a similar ban approved by California’s voters in 1996…For a second term in a row, the high court is set to consider a major test of affirmative action in state universities. In June, the court revived a white student’s challenge to a race-based admissions policy at the University of Texas. In October, the court will consider a constitutional challenge that comes from the opposite direction. Lawyers representing black and other minority students are contesting Michigan’s ban on affirmative action. Separately, the University of California’s president and 10 chancellors filed their own brief Friday highlighting the ban on affirmative action. “More than 15 years after Proposition 209 barred consideration of race in admissions decisions … the University of California still struggles to enroll a student body that encompasses the broad racial diversity of the state,” they said…

Full article at http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-affirmative-action-20130831,0,2784755.story

You can see the action of the UC Regents banning affirmative action below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBB1vM6RNZA?feature=player_detailpage]