The UC Board of Regents last week reacted cautiously to a faculty proposal to admit all undergraduates based both on their academic record and on how they have handled obstacles and opportunities.

At their Oct. 17 meeting in San Francisco, the regents raised questions about academic standards, public confidence and funding, should they adopt a scheme for revamping the admissions process.

Currently, each campus admits 50 to 75 percent of its undergraduate applicants solely based on academic criteria – grades, standardized test scores and classes taken. Davis admits about 60 percent on this basis.

The remaining applications get a "comprehensive review" – taking into account factors like community service, special abilities, athletics and socioeconomic background, in addition to scholastic achievement.

The new proposal would extend comprehensive review to all undergraduate applicants. Those who meet basic UC eligibility standards would continue to be assured entrance to UC. Comprehensive review wouldn’t change that, but it would affect who gets into which campus.

"My bias is to evaluate the whole student," said Regent Sherry Lansing. "Trying to evaluate someone on just a number is a very dangerous thing."

Skeptics expressed concern that the comprehensive review process would lower academic standards and inject race into UC’s admissions process.

"We do want well-rounded students, but we’re not the Rotary Club," said Regent Ward Connerly. "We’re trying to select scholars, not good community people."

Professor Jeffery Gibeling, chair of the UC Davis Academic Senate, noted a "perception of faculty that academic preparation has been declining, despite a rise in GPA and SAT scores."

Each time the issue is discussed, Gibeling said, his colleagues question the rapidity of changes to admissions policy and how much it will cost to implement the new procedures.

Admissions officials at Davis assign weights and points to various criteria in order to rank applicants. Because this process is fairly quantitative, Gibeling said, it has been possible to do simulations – applying comprehensive review criteria to the applications submitted by this year’s freshman class.

"The quality and diversity of the class was unchanged," he told the board.

In spite of all such concerns, he said, "the sense of the Davis faculty is to support the proposal."

Through fall 2001, UC Davis employed a three-tier admissions process admitting most students on an index derived from academic criteria alone – based on students’ completion of UC entrance course requirements, their UC-calculated grade-point average and their college entrance test scores. Students were rank-ordered by college, and the campus admitted up to 60 percent of them based on their indexes. The balance of freshman application files were read cover to cover and given a comprehensive review.

Professor Calvin Moore, chair of the UC Berkeley Academic Senate committee that sets that campus’s admissions policy, shared data comparing the freshman class at Berkeley before and after 1998, when the campus first implemented a comprehensive review system.

The statistics on high school GPAs, SAT scores and scholastic performance at Berkeley demonstrated that academic standards are not eroded by taking a broader look at students’ files, he said.

Not all the regents were convinced. Some questioned whether the public would feel confident that the comprehensive review process is fair, since decisions would not be based exclusively on quantifiable factors.

"Are we going to be continually explaining ourselves to the public?" asked Regent Sue Johnson. "Will we retain their confidence?"

Fairness, academic excellence and openness are essential to any UC admissions scheme, said Berkeley Professor Jack Citrin. "The proposals before you erode each of these principals," he asserted.

The political scientist called for an in-depth analysis of the experience at Berkeley since 1998.

How to finance the plan was another concern. Earlier this year, the Board of Regents voted to guarantee admission to the top 12.5 percent of graduating California high school students (some of them as transfers from two-year institutions). However, it recently put this "dual admissions" plan on hold for lack of funds.

"How can we find the resources to administer comprehensive review," asked Connerly, "when we can’t even find a couple million dollars for dual admissions?"

Comprehensive review would amount to a "sea change," noted Lansing. "What we are trying to do is extremely difficult. But because it is difficult does not mean we shouldn’t do it, because it will get us to the best pool of students."

The UC Davis Representative Assembly plans to meet Tuesday afternoon and discuss campus implementation of the proposal.

Then, if approved by a systemwide Academic Senate meeting on Wednesday, the proposal will come before the regents for a vote during a Nov. 14 and 15 UC San Francisco, Laurel Heights, meeting.

Also set to come before the regents for design approval in November are projects putting $52 million toward new Segundo freshmen housing and dining commons and plans for a new $7.3 million aquatics center. Regents also will consider the approval of financing for a $19.5 million mathematical sciences building and a $24.5 million Vet Med instructional facility.

Cathy Cockrell works on staff at the Berk-eleyan, UC Berkeley’s staff and faculty newspaper.