Getting In

At first look, the two students appear identical in nearly every respect.

Both applied to UCLA for admission in Fall 2003 with stellar 4.04 Grade Point Averages and excellent scores of 1260 and 1240 on their SATs. Likewise, they both did well on their SAT II tests. Each took multiple semesters of Advanced Placement and honors courses. They both received a variety of accolades and participated in an array of activities beyond the classroom.

They are two students among the nearly 45,000 who applied for admission (as well as being among the almost 19,000, about 40 percent, who had GPAs of 4.0 or higher — enough students with straight A’s to make up more than four complete freshman classes). One of these students got in. The other was one of the 34,000 who were turned away.

Why?

For the three of every four applicants to UCLA and their families who receive the disheartening news that they didn’t get in, questions inevitably arise: I did great in school, I worked hard, why wasn’t I selected? Why did a classmate I know with the same grades and test scores (or maybe even lower ones) get in over me? How was the decision made?

They are questions often laden with frustration and sometimes anger.

For answers, one must look to the University of California’s policy of Comprehensive Admissions. Established two years ago by the UC faculty and regents, the policy was implemented to assure the integrity and fairness of the freshman-admissions process at all of UC’s undergraduate campuses. To many, whether it’s students who make the cut or those who don’t, or parents, alumni and the general public, the process is a mystery. To the cadre of faculty, administrators and staff involved in making admissions decisions for UCLA, it is a painstaking process that requires close scrutiny of an enormous pool of well-qualified applicants to produce a freshman class that is bright, well-rounded, motivated, self-directed and likely to succeed in the competitive environment of a school like UCLA.

Comprehensive review mandates that each campus evaluate the full achievement record of all its applicants. Rather than looking strictly at a narrow range of quantitative factors such as grades and test scores, the process recognizes that merit is demonstrated in a broad variety of academic and personal achievements. The goal, says UCLA Director of Admissions Vu Tran Ed.D. ’99, “is to have an equitable admissions policy that gives all high-achieving students a fair chance.”

“Comprehensive review tries to personalize the admissions process to the greatest extent possible,” says Susan Wilbur Ph.D. ’96, director of undergraduate admissions in the UC Office of the President. “Every student’s application must be fully read. We are interested in learning about the individual talents, strengths and abilities that each student will bring to the university.”

It is an approach that allows those making the evaluation to consider students in totality: how they have pushed the boundaries of education and personal achievement, the trajectory of their academic paths, the goals they have set and the choices they’ve made, where they have overcome significant challenges in their lives and where, perhaps, they have fallen down.

Comprehensive review is not altogether new, points out Keith Stolzenbach, UCLA professor of civil and environmental engineering and chair of the campus’ Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools (CUARS), which took an active role in developing and implementing the policy for UCLA. It essentially replaces the former “2-Tier” system by which each campus admitted 50 percent to 75 percent of its freshman class on academic criteria alone (Tier 1) and the balance of the class-based, in effect, on a comprehensive review of academics plus supplemental criteria (Tier 2).

“The regents’ decision to implement comprehensive review didn’t have a huge impact at UCLA,” says Thomas Lifka, assistant vice chancellor of student academic services. “We already had been using a wide range of criteria beyond just academics to differentiate more carefully in making our decisions.”

For the system as a whole, comprehensive review moves the campuses away from a formulaic model of admissions traditionally practiced by most large, public institutions and toward the more qualitative, individualized review employed by many of the nation’s most selective private universities.

Academic preparation is the most significant factor in admissions decisions, and eligibility for freshman admission to the UC is based solely on grades in required high school courses and/or standardized test scores — minimum criteria that must be met before any other factors are considered. UC-eligible students make up the top 12.5 percent of California’s graduating seniors, the group for whom a UC education is assured by the California Master Plan for Higher Education. But UC eligibility alone does not automatically qualify a student for admission to one of the more selective campuses such as UCLA, Berkeley or San Diego. Thus, a student’s achievements in combination with academic qualifications can become a very important factor in making admissions decisions at those schools.

“UC’s definition of high-achieving students goes beyond academic measures such as grades and test scores to values such as leadership, community involvement, honors, awards and so forth,” says Tran. “Academic criteria alone are not sufficient.”

Such personal achievement can be demonstrated in everything from special research projects to community service to accomplishments in athletics or maintaining a challenging job. For applicants to UCLA, the personal-achievement bar is high.

Look again at the example of the two students, both highly qualified, one successful in winning admittance to UCLA, the other not.

The successful applicant first: High grades and high test scores. Seventeen semesters’ worth of AP and honors classes. Numerous honors and awards, including membership in the National Honor Society, a Kodak Young Leaders Award and a leadership award for managing the school’s computer lab store. Captain of the school volleyball team. Four years on varsity soccer. President of the school’s chapter of the California Scholarship Federation. Participant in AIDS Walk L.A. Volunteer at a convalescent hospital, tutor for underachieving students and a summer’s service with a youth ministry at an orphanage in Romania. In addition, the applicant took a rigorous mix of 12 college-prep courses, including some honors and AP, in the senior year.

The applicant who was not admitted: Again, high grades and test scores. Sixteen semesters’ worth of AP and honors courses. High school honor roll and recognition for achievement on the Golden State Exams. Staff member on the school newspaper. Member of the French club. Participant in the school chapter of the California Scholarship Federation. Player on the softball team. Violinist in the school orchestra. Nine AP, honors and other college-prep courses in the senior year.

Both excellent applicants, the kind of students many colleges would snap up in an instant. What, then, made the difference between getting into UCLA and not getting in?

“We look for distinctive honors, awards and recognitions,” says Tran. “We say distinctive because virtually every student who applies to UCLA has received many honors and awards.”

As for extracurricular pursuits, it is not enough that a student be occasionally involved in an outside activity, says Tran. “The student admitted to UCLA was involved in up to four extracurricular activities every year, and was on the school’s varsity soccer team four years in a row. There was ongoing volunteer service. The student who was denied admission had only one or two activities a year,” and none with great consistency. The first student also demonstrated more leadership, while the other was a member of campus groups but did not participate as a leader.

Applicants are also reviewed within the context in which they have demonstrated academic accomplishment. This component, known as “life challenge,” might include anything from a learning disorder to residence in a high-crime, poor-school neighborhood or coming from a single-parent or low-income household.

But having had adversity in one’s life is not itself a sufficient criterion upon which an admissions decision would ever be based. What would be considered is how the student achieved in that context — some demonstration of qualities that evidence a willingness to persevere and overcome.

A great many students admitted to UCLA, in fact, list no life challenges whatsoever on their applications. (Neither applicant cited as examples experienced significant life challenges.) Yet when a student has prevailed over challenges — in combination with excellent academics and personal achievement — it denotes something special about a person, says Tran.

“We all go through life along different routes,” says Tran. “Some people are less fortunate than others. If you are born with, let’s say, a physical disability and you still are able to study hard and become involved in many things, that says something about your ability to succeed.”

The complex process by which UCLA’s future freshmen are selected occupies fully half of each academic year.

Applications start arriving in early November, a trickle that becomes a deluge after Thanksgiving and stays that way until the final deadline of November 30. By that time, about 150 readers have been recruited and are undergoing 12 hours of intensive training.

The readers typically have strong ties to education, either as UCLA staff involved in admissions, counseling, student affairs or early academic outreach, as alumni who’ve served on scholarship committees or as high school counselors with in-depth knowledge of college-preparatory curricula. About a third are paid for their services, and the rest are volunteers and staff.

The review occurs on two parallel tracks. Most of the readers tackle the comprehensive dossier reviews. Combing through copies of students’ applications and personal statements, and a summary sheet of academic information prepared by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Relations With Schools (UARS), they assign each applicant a ranking on a scale of 1 to 5 for personal achievement and another for life challenges.

“I feel so good about being part of a process that’s really fair and thorough,” says Veda Veach, who continues as a senior evaluator after retiring from a long career in UARS. “There’s a sincerity that comes through in the applications. I really get hooked on reading the kids’ essays.”

Meanwhile, another group of highly trained readers conducts academic reviews, focusing on factors such as grades, test scores, breadth and difficulty of high school coursework and scholastic honors received. Every applicant is assigned an academic rank of 1 to 6 by two different readers. If more than one point separates the two rankings, another senior evaluator reads the application and a final determination is made.

During these reviews is when distinctions may be found among students with similar academic records, such as those examples in this story, or even between two students with dissimilar records. A close review of the application of a student with a 3.5 GPA and a 1020 SAT, for example, might reveal a more rigorous course load and other factors not clearly reflected in those grades and scores alone that would make that candidate a better-qualified applicant than another student with a 3.8 GPA or even a 4.0 and a 1320 SAT.

Checks and balances throughout the process guarantee consistency and fairness. “A goal of the training sessions is to ensure that everyone is utilizing the same assessment criteria,” says reader Steven J. Halpern ’73. Checking completed reviews and requiring multiple reads of some applications enable the staff to be certain that those criteria are maintained. In addition, says Rosemary Inks, who coordinates the training and reading process for UARS, “We have a resource team that’s on call for the readers if they come across something they’re not comfortable with, or if they have a question.”

Quality control includes a UC-wide verification process initiated by the Office of the President, in which a random sampling of applicants is asked to provide written confirmation of one of seven elements, such as information offered in the personal statement.

Since most of the application information other than GPAs and test scores is self-reported, “the faculty wanted to send a strong message that the process is fair and that we hold students accountable for the information they report,” says UC Admissions Director Wilbur. If a falsification is uncovered, that student is barred from admission to any UC campus. In the first year, Wilbur said, “We found our students were very honest in reporting their information.”

By February the applications have been thoroughly reviewed and ranked. Then the difficult task of deciding which students to admit and which to turn away begins. Applications that land on the borderline receive a complete reread — “A single point could make a difference,” says Stolzenbach. This year, some 4,000 borderline dossiers were reread.

The final selection for the College of Letters and Science, which represents more than 80 percent of the applicant pool, is the responsibility of CUARS, acting on recommendations from the director of admissions that are based on several factors, including the anticipated yield — the number of students expected to accept the offer of admission — and the undergraduate enrollment targets established by the Chancellor’s Enrollment Advisory Committee. Faculty in the schools of Arts and Architecture, Theater, Film and Television and the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science — using additional criteria such as auditions and portfolios — make separate admissions decisions for applicants to those undergraduate programs. Notification letters are mailed in mid-March; admitted students have until May 1 to submit a Statement of Intent to Register.

For the Fall 2003 freshman class, UCLA whittled its nearly 45,000 applications down to about 10,600 admitted students. Forty-four hundred are anticipated to enroll. The profile of those admitted freshmen is impressive:

• The average GPA was 4.24 (weighted for honors and Advanced Placement courses), up from 4.23 last year. The raw GPA (unweighted for honors and Advanced Placement) was 3.78, up from 3.77 in 2002.
• The average number of semesters of honors and AP classes taken was 18.6.
• The average score on the SAT I was 1332, up from 1321 last year.
• For the three SAT II exams, the average writing score was 667, up from 663 last year; the math average was 685, up from 679; and on the third exam, chosen by the student from a list of specified subjects, the average score was 691, up from 683.

Ensuring that UC remains both accessible and welcoming to underrepresented minority students has been a concern since the 1997 passage of Proposition 209, which bans consideration of race, religion, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in admissions decisions at California’s public universities. Similar concerns have surfaced across the nation as universities in Michigan, Texas, Florida, Virginia and other states attempt to achieve equitable admissions processes that meet the public demand for fairness while protecting the educational benefits that derive from a diverse student body.

Comprehensive review is not, however, a backdoor attempt to get around the constraints of Prop. 209, as some have asserted, UC’s Wilbur says. She notes that a student’s self-reported gender and ethnic identity remain confidential; CUARS makes its admissions decisions without any knowledge of applicants’ race or ethnicity.

“Comprehensive review was intended to achieve a fair admissions policy in a highly competitive environment,” says Wilbur. “It has achieved that goal.”

UCLA’s selectivity comes as a surprise to many — selectivity that increases as applications soar. “The combination of excellence and affordability is a very powerful draw for our students,” says Lifka. Two decades ago, 8,814 students applied and 63 percent were admitted; 10 years ago, 24,986 applied and 46 percent gained admission; in 2003, 44,971 applied and 23 percent were admitted. UCLA’s numbers have become comparable to those of the nation’s most elite universities.

Some of UCLA’s own faculty members find the heightened selectivity to be a sticking point — especially when their own children are unable to gain admission.

“You have to remember,” says Stolzenbach, “that in world terms, the students who apply by and large are the top students from across the entire state. They all look very good. At the school where I used to teach [MIT], they called it ‘slicing the bologna.’ Because you’re taking this rarified group and then you are slicing them even thinner.”

Another sticking point for some is the issue of “legacy” admissions — or at UC, the lack thereof. Many private schools have wiggle room within their admissions policies to admit the offspring of alumni. Last year at Yale, for instance, 16 percent of the 1,300 new students enrolled were legacies. To the dismay of some, there is no such tradition in the UC. Says Peter Hayashida ’88, assistant vice chancellor for external affairs, “Information on parental status as an alumnus or donor is neither solicited through the admissions process nor considered in making a decision on the student’s application.”

And the written policy of the UC further states that “admissions motivated by concern for financial, political or other such benefit to the university” are expressly prohibited.

“I get letters from alumni or engage in discussions about why UCLA doesn’t have legacy admissions,” says Keith Brant ’83, M.A. ’88, Ph.D. ’95, assistant vice chancellor of alumni relations and executive director of the UCLA Alumni Association. “Many alumni feel that if UCLA is going to be competitive with the top-level private universities, then we should play by the same rules.”

While it’s important for alumni to know they are valued as part of the UCLA family, “as a public institution we have an obligation to all the people of California,” Brant says. “Once alumni understand all sides of the issue — their interest in solid alumni relations balanced with good public policy — they generally accept the rationale for the regents’ policy.”

The same can be said of comprehensive review; those who know the most about this detailed approach to freshman admissions are its staunchest advocates. Yet the complexity of the process — the need to fairly and equitably select from among a pool of applicants that is not only replete with well-prepared, high-achieving, UC-eligible students, but also is 10 times the size of the freshman class itself — along with the privacy issues inherent in any admissions policy, make it difficult to share with those not directly involved.

“To me, the biggest disadvantage of all of this is how multifaceted it is and how difficult it is to explain to people,” says Lifka. Nevertheless, “A public institution has an obligation to make the process transparent,” he says.

Adds Tran: “You can only make good judgments based on what you know. When I share information with those who question the process, at least they understand where we’re coming from.”

In this context, it is no longer feasible to base these critical decisions solely on grades and test scores. A broader scope of information is necessary to identify those well-rounded applicants — the ones who are strong academically and also have demonstrated leadership, involvement, persistence, self-reliance and a host of other qualities — who are most likely to succeed at UCLA and beyond.

“That,” concludes Tran, “is really the nature and essence of the comprehensive admissions policy.”

ELIGIBILITY DEFINED

For California residents, there are three paths to meeting the UC’s basic entrance requirements for freshmen.

Most UC applicants follow the path known as Eligibility in the Statewide Context, which is satisfied by completing 15 units of high school coursework (one unit equals two semesters of study) in the “a-g” subjects — history/social science, English, mathematics, laboratory science, foreign language, visual and performing arts and college-preparatory electives; meeting a GPA requirement in those courses; and attaining qualifying scores on the SAT I or ACT and three SAT II exams.

In general, the lower one’s GPA in the a-g courses, the higher one’s test scores must be to ensure UC eligibility. For example, a GPA of 3.5 or higher would have to be accompanied by a combined score of 3120 on the SAT I and three SAT II exams, while a GPA of 2.8 (the lowest GPA that satisfies the scholarship requirement) would require total test scores of at least 4640. (A perfect score on the SAT I is 1600. The SAT II exams are each worth 800 points, and those scores are doubled.)

Another path is Eligibility in the Local Context. Via this path, the top 4 percent of students at each participating California high school are guaranteed admission to one of UC’s eight general campuses. Identification of the top 4 percent is based solely on GPA in required courses completed in grades 10 and 11.

Eligibility by Examination Alone is a third possible pathway to UC eligibility, requiring a minimum SAT score of 1400 on the SAT I or 31 on the ACT, plus a total score of 1760 on three SAT II exams.

Out-of-state applicants have a somewhat tougher road to UC eligibility. They must either attain a minimum 3.4 GPA in combination with qualifying test scores, or they must achieve the necessary test scores for Eligibility by Examination Alone.