This article originally appeared in the L.A. Times on Sunday, February 28, 1999.

California Governor Gray Davis announced support for a scheme that would create an official two-track admission system at the University of California. The plan was put forth by faculty and was considered by the Regents on February 18 with a vote scheduled to take place at the March 18-19 Regents’ meeting. If passed, this plan, in addition to admitting students based on academic performance and test scores based on statewide comparisons, would establish a second door to the University of California. Through it would walk students who performed in the top 4 percent of their particular high school based on the courses that qualify one for UC admission.

This proposal is intended to increase the number of students eligible for the University of California and at the same time increase the system’s diversity. By mandate, the system accepts the top 12.5 percent of California’s graduating seniors, but only 11.1 percent are technically eligible under the present standards. By guaranteeing the top four percent of each school admission, the thinking goes, the UC system could accept an added 3,500 or so students who are not in the first tier. Among these new students will likely be more minorities, thereby increasing the system’s diversity.

The logic is impeccable, except for the facts it fails to incorporate. According to a February 1998 report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, a full 20 percent of California’s graduates are eligible for the University of California based on their grades in UC required course work and SAT scores. The 11 percent figure is misleading. All the additional 9 percent of students would have to do to become eligible is take three SAT II tests, commonly called achievement tests which determine knowledge in specific subject areas. Many students do not take these tests because they are not required for admission to the Cal State University system, which enrolls twice as many students as the UC. Nor is the SAT II test required for admission to many other top universities. In other words, California’s students who have the grades to attend UC but choose not to take the tests are rejecting UC, not the other way around.

More important, the 4% scheme simply won’t work to significantly increase student diversity. UC’s Office of the President predicts that under the 4 percent guarantee, eligibility rates for African Americans and Latinos will increase slightly. But, eligibility for White, Asian, and other students will rise as well. The plan will likely do nothing for diversity at the most competitive schools.

Not only will the proposed plan fail to achieve greater diversity, but, by breaking from a system of admissions based on individual comparisons, it will introduce perverse incentives into the education system for both students and institutions. Under such a plan, students will benefit from going to low performing schools. At the same time, low performing schools will have their failure masked by the guarantee that 4 percent of their students will be UC bound if they so choose.

These two fundamental problems – the failure of the plan to achieve significantly more black and Latino admissions and the perverse, and unfair, incentives the plan would produce – can’t be reconciled. Given disparate eligibility rates, ranging from 30 percent of Asians to 2.8 percent of African Americans, the only way the University of California will mirror the state’s diversity is if it admits by random lottery. No one would think that is fair.

The only admission system that is fair is one that compares individual students to each other, while retaining the flexibility to consider unusual circumstances ranging from physical to family problems. Under such a system, everyone plays by the same rules and everyone has an incentive to achieve. The UC is closer to such a system now than it has been for many years. That the current system does not increase minority admissions in the short run is no reason to move hastily to a top 4% system which is less just and provides no incentive to either students or high schools to strive for higher standards. There is no quick fix to under-prepared students. Let’s give the current system a chance to work.

– Sally C. Pipes

President and CEO