FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, July 19, 2001
UPDATE: September 18, 2001

Contact: Brad Hayward
(510) 987-9195
brad.hayward@ucop.edu

REGENTS APPROVE "DUAL ADMISSIONS" PLAN, EXPANDING UC ACCESS FOR HIGH-ACHIEVING STUDENTS

The University of California Board of Regents today (July 19) approved a "Dual Admissions" program providing a new way for top-performing California high school students to become eligible for the UC system and gain admission to one of the university's campuses.

Under the new policy, students between the top 4 percent and 12.5 percent of the class in each California high school, based on grades in UC-required courses, will be granted UC eligibility and admission provided they complete a transfer program at a California community college.

Students in their senior year of high school will receive both an admission offer from a community college and a provisional admission offer from a UC campus, conditioned upon the student's satisfactory completion of lower-division work at the community college. After fulfilling their freshman and sophomore requirements at the community college, these students will complete their upper-division studies at the UC campus and receive a UC degree.

"This new program helps fulfill the promise of the Master Plan for Higher Education, which envisions a strong, effective transfer program broadening Californians' access to a four-year college education," said UC President Richard C. Atkinson. "It also sends a signal to top-performing students, particularly those in disadvantaged high schools, that they have a clear path to a UC degree."

Regents approved the program on a 14-3 vote.

The new program was proposed by Atkinson and endorsed by the Academic Senate, the representative body of the UC faculty, after a thorough and deliberative review.

The policy is expected to take effect for the class applying to college for fall 2003 entrance, meaning the first students transferring to UC through the program would do so in fall 2005. [Update as of Sept. 18, 2001: Implementation of the program has now been delayed until adequate funding can be secured. Check back here for updates.]

"After extensive analysis and discussion, the faculty concluded that this program would extend the benefits of a UC education to larger numbers of deserving students while maintaining the university's high academic standards," said Michael Cowan, chair of the UC Academic Council and a professor of American studies and literature at UC Santa Cruz.

Regents approved the new policy with the understanding that the administration will ask the faculty to carefully examine several issues - the minimum grade-point average required for transfer, implications of the program for students in the top 4 percent of the class in each school and the resources available for the program's support - and that the president will then recommend any appropriate policy adjustments to the regents.

With the implementation of the "Dual Admissions" program, there will be four principal ways for a student to gain UC eligibility.

The first is "Eligibility in the Statewide Context," which grants UC eligibility to students meeting certain high school grade and standardized test score requirements. The second is "Eligibility in the Local Context," which grants UC eligibility to the top 4 percent of the class in each California high school, based on grades in UC-required courses.

The third path, "Dual Admissions," builds on "Eligibility in the Local Context" and applies to the next group of students, in the top 4 percent to 12.5 percent of the class, provided they are not already UC-eligible under the university's statewide eligibility criteria. And the fourth path is completion of UC's requirements for transfer at a community college or other institution providing lower-division instruction.

The new "Dual Admissions" program will help ensure UC access for students who demonstrate hard work and achieve academic success in their local educational environment. It also will help UC meet the goal, contained in the university's "partnership agreement" with Gov. Gray Davis, of a 6 percent annual increase in community college transfers through 2005-06.

UC campuses currently offer a variety of programs facilitating a smooth transfer process. "Dual Admissions" builds on these programs by extending admission to students upon high school graduation, even though they will be completing their lower-division preparation outside the university. It also assures them an enriched program of advising and support by UC staff during the students' community college enrollment, improving their chances of academic success.

Academic expectations for the "Dual Admissions" program will be high. Students made UC-eligible by the new program will have taken a large number of UC's required college preparatory courses in high school and, in community college, will be required to meet the course and grade requirements for their intended major at a UC campus.

Students beginning their higher education at a community college have historically done very well after transferring to UC. Just as 76 percent of entering UC freshmen graduate within six years, 76 percent of transfer students entering at the junior year graduate within four years of transferring. UC grade-point averages upon graduation are 2.95 for students who entered the university as transfers, compared with 3.12 for those who entered as freshmen.

UC estimates that up to 3,500 new students per year may enroll through the "Dual Admissions" program. This figure is consistent with the level of transfer enrollment growth for which the university has already been planning under the "partnership agreement" with Gov. Davis.

Every UC undergraduate campus will participate in the program and admit students through it.

Estimates by the university indicate that 22 percent of students in the "Dual Admissions" pool will come from rural schools, 39 percent from urban schools and 39 percent from suburban schools. By comparison, only 12 percent of students in UC's existing freshman eligibility pool are from rural schools, while 41 percent are from urban and 47 percent from suburban schools.

The data also indicate that more than half of the students in the "Dual Admissions" pool will report parental income of $35,000 per year or less, compared to 36 percent of current UC transfers and 29 percent of current UC freshmen. It is estimated that about 40 percent of the pool will be white, 29 percent Latino, 18 percent Asian American, 6 percent African American and 1 percent American Indian, with other/unknown ethnicities accounting for 6 percent.

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