Interesting Numbers From UCLA

The University of California, and especially UCLA, continues to wrestle with the novel and perplexing problem, forced on it by the citizens of California, of having to treat all its applicants, students, faculty, and staff without regard to their race. (See my most recent discussion here.)

Now UCLA has released some interesting numbers, and they reinforce my point, made in the post cited above, that it is a mistake for observers to concentrate only on the numbers of black freshmen who enroll every year. Equally important are the numbers of black applicants, the number of those applicants who are admitted, and, especially, the number of those admitted who choose to attend.

Another important consideration that is often overlooked is how much more competitive, for all applicants, UCLA has become over the past several years. Recall that Proposition 209, banning race preferences, went into effect in 1998.

For the 1995 fall freshman class, the admit rate was 41 percent overall. By fall 1999, the admit rate was 29 percent, and for fall 2006, the admit rate was 25 percent. This increasing competitiveness means that large numbers of UC-eligible students are denied admission to UCLA

Proposition 209 is only partially responsible for the declining admit rate.

In 1995, when the “overall” admit rate was 41%, the admit rate for black applicants was 48% (693 admitted from 1450 applicants). 289 blacks, or 42% of those admitted, chose to enroll.

In 2005 the black admit rate was 15% (280 of 1844), and 45% of those admitted (125) chose to enroll.

In 2006 the black admit rate was 11% (244 of 2166 ), and 39% of those admitted (96) chose to enroll.

Thus in the past year, a year that supposedly revealed a crisis, the percentage of admitted blacks who choose to enroll at UCLA has declined more than the percentage of those who were admitted.

Moreover, the emphasis on freshmen, whether admitted or enrolled, misses something very important, especially for blacks.

For years, UCLA has had the highest number of transfer students in the UC system, and among the highest in the country. Nearly 40 percent of new undergraduate students are transfer admits….

The number of transfer students at UCLA has increased in the past decade. For fall 1995, UCLA enrolled 2,186 transfer students; 10 years later, in fall 2005, the campus enrolled 3,150.

The number of African American transfer applicants, transfer admits and those declaring their intent to enroll at UCLA for fall 2006 all increased over the previous year.

Much of the criticism of having to treat applicants without regard to their race is the fact that blacks, on average, don’t do as well on standardized tests, which in turn are criticized for undervaluing black potential. Insofar as standardized tests are the problem, the transfer route into UCLA provides an excellent solution:

The transfer path also provides a way for students to meet UC admissions requirements and to transfer to UCLA or other UC campuses without a high school diploma or taking standardized tests such as the SAT. [Emphasis added]

Missing from this latest release, but crucially important to evaluating the impact of UCLA’s involuntary equal treatment of its applicants, are numbers revealing any changes in the percentage of admitted blacks who graduate in six years or less. I wonder if those numbers are omitted here because they would tend to show that if you treat people equally, they perform equally.

Finally, in my view the most important aspect of these numbers is what they reveal about how deep and extensive the former preferences were. The fact that black admit rates fell from 48% before preferences were banned to 15% (2005) or 11% (2006) demonstrates that race was not being used as a simple “plus factor” or “tie-breaker” to tip the scales when comparing similarly qualified applicants.

Say What? (5)

  1. Michelle Dulak Thomson August 14, 2006 at 1:26 pm | | Reply

    John,

    Missing from this latest release, but crucially important to evaluating the impact of UCLA’s involuntary equal treatment of its applicants, are numbers revealing any changes in the percentage of admitted blacks who graduate in six years or less. I wonder if those numbers are omitted here because they would tend to show that if you treat people equally, they perform equally.

    “Six years or less [fewer?]” would mean that the first year you could look at is 2004. I think it’s a little soon to draw any conclusions there, and probably right for UCLA to hold onto the data for the moment. There are complicating factors, like the reported decision of a number of talented Black students to stay away from UC right after 209 came into effect despite having been admitted, because the campus “atmosphere” was thought to be hostile or because the number of Black students was predicted to be very small. I think these concerns were always overblown, but they were very widely reported, and they almost certainly discouraged some top Black students from attending the “flagship” UCs right after 209 passed. Now that things have settled down a bit, I rather suspect it’s a different story. But my point is that any numbers about graduation rates we could get now would reflect the classes that came in during the first upheaval, not the settled situation. I’d rather wait and see.

  2. John Rosenberg August 14, 2006 at 4:35 pm | | Reply

    Michelle – First, on the important matter, you are probably right that my “less” should have been “fewer.” But it’s not a slam dunk: “six years” can be considered as one unit of measure, not six individual years, and not less an authority that the Random House word maven recommends “less” in the example “‘less than three miles,’ (with “three miles” being a single distance, not three individual miles)….”

    Now, as for the secondary matter, you rightly note that many talented black students chose not to apply to Berkeley or UCLA in the immediate aftermath of the passage of Prop. 209, or to enroll if they were accepted. Still, some blacks did enroll at both institutions, and it would have been useful for UCLA to have compared their graduation rates with those of other groups. Of course, that data will be even more instructive over time.

  3. Michelle Dulak Thomson August 14, 2006 at 5:45 pm | | Reply

    John, I don’t buy the argument that “six years” is one unit of measure, because we’re talking years of college here. They don’t come in infinitely-divisible swaths, but in discrete years — at most, half-years or quarters. “5 and 5/8 years of college” would get at least a double-take. “5 and 5/8 miles” is just another distance.

    On the other matter, my point was just that the initial upheaval is a good reason not to try to start analyzing just yet.

    Of course, that data will be even more instructive over time.

    You did that purely to bait me, didn’t you? You know perfectly well that I’m one of the three people left alive who think “data” is a plural noun. (I don’t know the names of the other two, and they’re currently in undisclosed but fortified locations.)

  4. John Rosenberg August 14, 2006 at 9:00 pm | | Reply

    John, I don’t buy the argument that “six years” is one unit of measure

    Well, as I said, you’re probably right, but I still think a strong argument can be made for the essential similarity between “How many people graduated in less than six years?” and “How many aardvarks will we pass in less than six miles?”

    You did that purely to bait me, didn’t you? You know perfectly well that I’m one of the three people left alive who think “data” is a plural noun

    Yes. I’m one of the oyher two.

  5. Dom August 15, 2006 at 4:32 pm | | Reply

    My child is “younger than 5 years”, not “fewer than 5 years”. I am “shorter than 6 feet”, not “fewer than 6 feet”. Whenever possible, you want to change the general word “fewer” into something more appropriate given the units. If you are talking about the number of years I’ve owned a home, I’d say “fewer than 10”. But the number of years I was in college? I graduated in “less” time than the typical college span or 6 years. “Less” works for me.

    Now about your spelling, John … “not less an authority” … “I’m one of the oyher two.” WTF?

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