Comprehensive review draws fire from UC regents (U. California-Berkeley) By Annthea Whittaker & Ben Barron Daily Californian (U. California-Berkeley) 08/09/2002 (U-WIRE) BERKELEY, Calif. -- University of California regents strongly criticized comprehensive review, the new policy designed to give UC schools a flexible admissions process in a meeting Tuesday. While the UC Berkeley comprehensive admissions process, which has been in place in a modified form since 1998, garnered tough criticism from Regent John Moores, who called UC Berkeley's admissions procedure "too subjective," other regents called for a systemwide evaluation to assess the policy's effectiveness. "There is a lack of transparency in who is getting into difficult campuses and why," Moores said. "Every campus has an implementation of comprehensive review where they calculate points based on different factors, but Berkeley's process is quite subjective. How can an auditor or manager know what part of it is really good?" The comprehensive review admissions policy, passed by UC Regents in November 2001, allows admissions officers from UC campuses to consider a broader variety of academic and personal qualifications for all applicants. The criteria considers subjective standards like intellectual curiosity and leadership. UC regents are not sure the process admits the top students. "We want to make sure the top 12.5 percent are being admitted under these guidelines," Regent Velma Montoya said. But UC officials said comprehensive review does not prevent the top 12.5 percent from gaining admission into the UC system. "The top 12.5 percent of California's high school students are already guaranteed a spot in one of UC's 12 campuses," said Hanan Eisenman, a UC spokesperson. Under the earlier two-tiered process, each UC campus admitted 50 to 75 percent of its freshman students using an academic formula. The other 25 percent of student applications were evaluated using criteria now used in comprehensive review. Regent John Davies, who voted against comprehensive review, criticized the process. "An entirely subjective process has advantages and disadvantages," Davies said. "The system of 50 percent was a perfect compromise." The entire incoming UC Berkeley freshman class was admitted using 14 admission criteria under a new process called unitary review. Richard Black, assistant vice chancellor for Admission and Enrollment at UC Berkeley said the change is positive. "We are taking into account a number of different factors and looking for the student who has already excelled with the opportunities they have had," Black said. Black said UC Berkeley admissions standards have not been compromised. "The minimum eligibility for University of California admissions remains the same," Black said. "It is determined by a formula which looks at GPA and SAT I and SAT II scores." Student Regent Designate Dexter Ligot-Gordon said UC Berkeley's review process is important in fully understanding the quality of the applicants. "The unitary review is very important because rather than just numbers, we want to know more about students," said Ligot-Gordon. "We can now more fully assess and fully evaluate what students have accomplished." Regents John Moores and David Lee called the admission process into question at a Special Meeting of the Investment Advisory Committee of the UC Board of Regents. *****************