Inside Bay Area, Tri-Valley Herald, Daily Review Online May 17, 2005

New report says method is working as intended

The University of California, Berkeley's admissions policy was under the microscope not too long ago, with critics charging the campus's "holistic" approach gave an unfair boost to those with lower academic credentials, especially certain minority students.

But university officials found a measure of vindication Monday with the release of a new report that says the policy, called comprehensive review, is working as intended, with virtually no disparity along ethnic lines.

The policy considers grades alongside factors such as demonstrated leadership and personal hardships in admissions decisions.

Good grades and test scores are the single best predictor of who gets into UC Berkeley, stated the report, which was prepared at university request by UC Berkeley sociology professor Michael Hout.

While application readers do give weight to "intangibles," such as hardships and leadership potential, the report found that the extra boost bore no correlation to ethnicity when parsing out spaces at the prestigious school.

The report did find ethnic disparities in specific cases when applications required additional review or went through a tie-breaking process, but the differences were so small they had no appreciable effect on admissions rates.

Campus officials have already drafted new guidelines to eliminate the disparities.

"Comprehensive review is not only the best way to look at a student, it's certainly a way that is free of any racial or ethnic bias," said Richard Black, UC Berkeley's associate vice chancellor of admissions and enrollment.

Hout's report, the first to review all the factors that go into admissions decisions, should settle the race debate, said UC Provost M.R.C. Greenwood, who reviewed the study along with a systemwide eligibility and admissions study group.

The Hout study, as well as additional research presented to the study group, show that race and ethnicity play no role in UC admissions.

"At this point, there is no statistical basis on which to say the Universty of California is not making a good-faith effort to comply with Proposition 209," which ended affirmative action in the state, Greenwood said Monday.

But one critic said the Hout report doesn't go far enough.

"The question isn't whether Hispanics or African Americans were getting in somehow under comprehensive review, the question here is whether people who are somehow less academically qualified are getting in over others who were more academically qualified, regardless of race," said Lance Izumi, director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, a public-policy think tank.

"This is one of the problems with asking somebody from their own institution to do this analysis," Izumi continued. "They don't end up asking the right questions."

Black defended Hout's work, saying it was reviewed independently by four researchers. Further, he said all UC Berkeley students are highly qualified. The report, Black said, was intended to answer questions over the role of race in Berkeley admissions.

University officials requested the report last year, after John Moores, then chair of the UC Board of Regents, conducted an analysis that showed that more than 3,000 students with SAT scores of 1400 or above were not admitted to the selective school in 2002, while 359 students with scores between 600 and 1000 were admitted. The average SAT score among students admitted that year was 1337, out of a possible 1600.

Moores did not return a phone call Monday for comment on the report.

Critics questioned whether university officials were using comprehensive review to skirt a state law banning racial preferences in university admissions. Others said low-scoring students had no place on the flagship campus.

The criticism enraged UC Berkeley officials, who repeatedly argued that test scores alone were an inaccurate gauge of the academic quality of admitted students. Officials said comprehensive review is a color-blind process and that grades and high school achievement always carry the most weight in admissions decisions.

Hout studied close to 8,000 applications for 2004-05. The applications included information on grades and test scores as well as more than 50 additional factors considered by application readers, such as leadership roles, hours the students' worked each week, and others.

The campus admitted about 30 percent of its applicants that year — 10,955 out of 36,041, the report said.

Most applicants — 89 percent — were admitted based on an initial application review, the report said, but 11 percent of the applicants were bumped up into additional review, either through a process called "augmented review" or through a tie-breaking process.

Hout's study said African American, Native American and Latino applicants were more likely to receive the additional review than other students. The only advantage in those instances went to African American students, who were more likely to prevail in the tie-breaking process, reserved for students who score identical marks in the application review. Still, Hout said, the advantage was tiny, going only to six African American students.

Black said the campus has clarified its guidelines for when to refer applicants to additional review, which he thinks will eliminate the apparent disparities.

"Our faculty committee will continue to review the admissions experience here and I'm sure it will from time to time make enhancements," Black said, "but we believe this research and other research ... should lay this question to rest."

Contact Michelle Maitre at mmaitre@angnewspapers.com.