Ward Connerly: ‘[UC] has essentially lowered its standards’
Commenting on the University of California’s (UC) new admissions policy, which is a thinly disguised effort to get around a state law that bars the government from preferring or discriminating against any person based on factors like race and sex, the American Civil Rights Institute’s Ward Connerly told San Jose Mercury News that UC “has essentially lowered its standards.”
Any reasonable person can attest to this fact, but many are reluctant to talk about it in public. The aim of the less rigorous admissions policy is to expand the pool of applicants to include more minority students who may not have taken two SAT subject tests, a requirement the Board of Regents eliminated. The new policy states that applicants with a 3.0 or higher who’ve completed at least 11 of 15 required college prep courses by their junior year and taken the ACT with Writing or SAT Reasoning exam will be considered for admission.
The article also notes that Asian organizations are angry about the changes, which will negatively affect students of Asian decent applying to UC. “They contend that subject tests are a better indicator of college readiness than the SAT I, which favors American-born students over immigrants because scores are influenced by expensive ‘test prep’ and family upbringing,” according to the article.
UC’s changes come in the wake of concern about the ever-present academic achievement gap between blacks and Hispanics and whites and Asians. The school contends it merely is casting a wider net to include more low-income students. That would be fine if it were that simple. The fact is UC is lowering the standards of admission. And yes, this practice does widen the net. But at what cost?
Earlier this month, I blogged about Stephan Thernstrom’s article on how UC’s new policy changes affect students of Asian descent. People of Asian descent make up 12 percent of California’s population, but accounted for 37 percent of UC admissions last year. Under the new admissions policy, their numbers will be reduced by 10–20 percent.
