This brief essay covers the history of admissions at the University of California (UC), including the development of affirmative action programs in the 1960s and, more recently, the heated political battle over the use of race and gender preferences at the University.

Since 1995, the University of California has been prohibited from employing affirmative action principles in student admissions. In response to this constraint, the UC has sought to pursue a number of other avenues for promoting the selection and retention of a diverse student body. In this...

The purpose of this report is to better determine the level of general public trust in public higher education and the content of published articles in the press that may influence and reflect public confidence. By conducting a six-month media scan of four California newspapers, an overview is...

Validity researchers typically work with nonrandom samples, membership in which depends in part on the exam score being investigated. In a study of the SAT's validity for freshman GPA at a particular college, for example, FGPA is not observed for the entire pool of potential applicants, but only...

Large socioeconomic and ethnic disparities exist in college admissions. This paper demonstrates that by systematically accounting for the effect of socioeconomic circumstance on pre-college achievement, colleges can substantially reduce these disparities. A conceptual model distinguishes...

As part of the University of California's recent reconsideration of the role of the SAT in admissions, the UC Office of the President published an extensive report, UC and the SAT (2001), which examined the value of SAT I Reasoning Test scores, SAT II Subject Test scores, and high school grades...

In the aftermath of SP-1 and Proposition 209, the University of California has adopted several strategies in order to maintain access. In the long term, the university seeks to work with individual students to improve their academic preparation and to expand partnerships with the K-12 public...

After passage of Proposition 209, the University of California began searching for race-neutral admissions criteria that would allow it to minimize drops in enrollment of underrepresented minorities. Concern for underrepresented minorities led to several changes in admissions policies, most...

This study examined whether or not students who either had higher levels of cross-racial interaction during college or had same-institution peers with higher average levels of this type of interaction tend to report significantly larger developmental gains than their counterparts. Unlike...

This study examines the role of Advanced Placement (AP) and other honors-level courses as a criterion for admission at a leading public university, the University of California, and finds that the number of AP and honors courses taken in high school bears little or no relationship to...