SACRAMENTO, CA - John Moores, chairman of the University of California board of regents, recently ignited a firestorm when he released two reports on the UC admissions process. The reports found that students with low test scores were being admitted to UC Berkeley and that many such students dropped out. But is this a question of test scores or a racial balancing scheme that isn't working?

Moores's first report contained data showing that 3,218 students with SAT I scores of 1,400 or higher were denied entry into UC Berkeley in 2002. The SAT I, a basic aptitude test, has a top score of 1,600. It's true that many straight-A students with high test scores don't get into UC Berkeley - there just aren't enough spaces. However, Moores discovered that Berkeley admitted 374 students with SAT I scores of only 600 to 1,000. The average score for admission to Berkeley is 1,337.

In his second report, Moores found that the dropout rate for low-SAT-I students at Berkeley was higher than for other students. In 2002-03, students admitted with SAT I scores of less than 1,000 dropped out at twice the rate as the rest of their class. These students, says Moores, are much less likely to maintain "good academic standing'' than other students with better test scores. Low-SAT-I students also had grades that were, on average, half a point lower than other students.

How are lower-scoring students allowed to enter UC Berkeley and other elite UC campuses over their higher-scoring peers? For two years the UC system has used a "comprehensive review'' process that allows students with low grades and test scores into UC if they have had difficult life experiences.

For example, UC Berkeley officials recently showed reporters the application of a Vietnamese student who had only a 910 SAT-I score, but who was accepted because she spent 27 hours a week helping her family run their business. It is ironic that Berkeley officials would use the example of an Asian student because it's actually blacks and Hispanics who are benefiting from the comprehensive review process.

A Los Angeles Times analysis shows that at UC Berkeley, low-scoring blacks and Hispanics were admitted at twice the rate as similarly scoring Asians and whites. The Times found low-scoring blacks and Hispanics were 25 percent more likely to be admitted into UCLA than similarly scoring Asians and whites. In 2002 and 2003, about 1,500 low-scoring students were admitted to the two campuses.

It appears that UC is trying to manipulate the racial numbers at its two top campuses. A UC regent recently told me that UC outreach programs were making a mockery of the university's comprehensive review admissions system. Counselors are going to high schools and training minority students to write sob stories that would help the students gain admission. The regent agreed with my characterization of this activity as teaching students to "game'' the system.

UC Berkeley and UC president Robert Dynes have commissioned examinations of admissions practices. Legislators, parents, and students should not expect anything but a whitewash from these internal investigations. Comprehensive review might not be fair to the high-scoring students turned down by Berkeley and UCLA, but who said this was about fairness?

Lance T. Izumi is a Senior Fellow in California Studies at the California-based Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy. He can be reached via email at lizumi@pacificresearch.org.