Report 2019-113 Recommendation 10 Responses

Report 2019-113: The University of California: Qualified Students Face an Inconsistent and Unfair Admissions System That Has Been Improperly Influenced by Relationships and Monetary Donations (Release Date: September 2020)

Recommendation #10 To: University of California

To better safeguard the integrity of the university's admissions processes, the Office of the President should, by July 2021, begin conducting regular audits of the admissions processes at each of its undergraduate campuses, ensuring that it reviews each campus at least once every three years. These audits should be conducted by systemwide audit staff and include, but not be limited to, verification of special talents, communication between admissions staff and external parties regarding applicants, and other avenues for inappropriate influence on admissions discussed in this report. The audits should also endeavor to identify inappropriate admissions activity and deficiencies in the admissions process. The Office of the President should make the results of the audits public.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From September 2023

The University recognizes admissions as an area of ongoing potential risk and is committed to conducting regular audits of campus admissions processes. In response to one of its own recommendations from the systemwide internal audit of admissions, in fiscal year 2020-21, UC Internal Audit performed retrospective reviews of donations to all nine undergraduate campuses to identify admissions decisions that could have been influenced by these donations. For fiscal years 2021-22 and 2022-23, Internal Audit expanded the scope of its retrospective reviews of donations to include procedures to identify undergraduate admissions decisions that could have been influenced by the applicant's relationship to a member of the Senior Management Group. As part of these audits, the systemwide Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services (ECAS) reviews the analyses performed by the campus internal audit departments to ensure they are performed in accordance with the guidance issued by ECAS. UC Internal Audit will regularly audit campus admissions processes in future years to assess compliance with protocols and to ensure key risks are appropriately addressed.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Partially Implemented

As we have noted before, we will not consider this recommendation to be fully implemented until the Office of the President begins performing independent reviews of the campuses' admissions processes and until the scope of the audit is sufficient to address all of the areas of risk that we describe in the report.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2022

The University recognizes admissions as an area of ongoing potential risk and is committed to conducting regular audits of campus admissions processes. In response to one of its own recommendations from the systemwide internal audit of admissions, in fiscal year 2020-21, UC Internal Audit performed retrospective reviews of donations to all nine undergraduate campuses to identify admissions decisions that could have been influenced by these donations. For fiscal year 2021-22, Internal Audit expanded the scope of its retrospective reviews of donations to include procedures to identify undergraduate admissions decisions that could have been influenced by the applicant's relationship to a member of the Senior Management Group. Internal Audit is conducting the same expanded scope audit in fiscal year 2022-23. As part of these audits, the systemwide Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services (ECAS) reviews the analyses performed by the campus internal audit departments to ensure they are performed in accordance with the guidance issued by ECAS. UC Internal Audit will regularly audit campus admissions processes in future years to assess compliance with protocols and to ensure key risks are appropriately addressed.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Partially Implemented

As we have noted before, we will not consider this recommendation to be fully implemented until the Office of the President begins performing independent reviews of the campuses' admissions processes and until the scope of the audit is sufficient to address all of the areas of risk that we describe in the report.

1-Year Agency Response

The University recognizes admissions as an area of ongoing potential risk and is committed to conducting regular audits of campus admissions processes. In response to one of its own recommendations from the systemwide internal audit of admissions, in fiscal year 2020-21, UC Internal Audit performed retrospective reviews of donations to all nine undergraduate campuses to identify admissions decisions that could have been influenced by these donations. For fiscal year 2021-22, Internal Audit is expanding the scope of its retrospective reviews of donations to include procedures to identify undergraduate admissions decisions that could have been influenced by the applicant's relationship to a member of the Senior Management Group. UC Internal Audit will continue the expanded admissions audit activities implemented this past year and will regularly audit campus admissions processes in future years to assess compliance with protocols and to ensure key risks are appropriately addressed.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Partially Implemented

As we noted during its six month update, the audit plan that the Office of the President provided indicated that the campuses would conduct these audits themselves. Additionally, even if the campuses expand the scope of the audits to include reviews of relationships to certain staff at the University, the scope of the audit still will not address all of the areas we describe in the recommendation, such as verification of talent. We will not consider this recommendation to be fully implemented until the Office of the President begins performing independent reviews of the campuses' admissions processes, and until the scope of the audit is sufficient to address all of the areas of risk that we describe in the report.

6-Month Agency Response

The University recognizes admissions as an area of ongoing potential risk and is committed to conducting regular audits of campus admissions processes. In response to one of its own recommendations from the systemwide internal audit of admissions, in fiscal year 2020-21, UC Internal Audit initiated retrospective reviews of donations to all nine undergraduate campuses to identify admissions decisions that could have been influenced by these donations. Those reviews are currently in progress. Internal Audit is currently evaluating the scope and approach of admissions audits to be conducted in fiscal year 2021-22.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

As the Office of the President indicates, it has not yet completed this recommendation and is still assessing the scope and approach to admissions audits. To that end, we assess this recommendation as pending implementation.

To add clarity to the Office of the President's response: the documentation the Office of the President submitted shows that the retrospective reviews of donations and the potential for influence on admissions decisions are reviews being performed by the campuses' internal audit units. This is the same approach the University used to perform its initial review of admissions processes, which we found had resulted in deficient reviews. As it considers its approach to the admissions audits of the future, the Office of the President must ensure that it performs independent reviews of the campuses' admissions processes.

60-Day Agency Response

The Office of the President is currently evaluating the implementation of this recommendation.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2019-113

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.