Report 2019-113 Recommendation 12 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 #12 To: University of California

To increase the number of high school students who have the opportunity to gain admission to the university through its ELC program, the Office of the President should, beginning in
April 2021, do the following:
- Annually determine which high schools are eligible to participate in ELC but do not. It should annually report to BOARS the number of these high schools and their demographic
characteristics.
- Annually contact eligible high schools that are not participating in ELC to determine their reasons for choosing not to do so. It should assess whether the university can address barriers to participation and, to the extent that it can increase participation, it should take the steps to do so.

1-Year Agency Response

A survey was sent to non-participating and non-responsive schools to collect and evaluate what barriers to participation exist. As a result of the survey responses, UCOP will augment the manner in which information about ELC is routinely shared with high schools and continue to explore ways to streamline the data submission process.

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

The Office of the President provided a report summarizing its efforts to address this recommendation, which included performing outreach to eligible schools that do not participate in ELC and conducting a survey to identify the reasons that those schools do not participate. The report further describes the efforts that the Office of the President will take to address the barriers to participation that the schools reported in their surveys; one such effort included annual outreach to nonparticipating schools.

6-Month Agency Response

The annual outreach campaign for ELC participation commenced in February 2021. An invitation to join ELC was sent to nearly 1,000 schools not currently participating in ELC. It should be noted that not all schools are necessarily eligible to participate but information was included on how to determine eligibility, expectations of participating schools, as well as contact information for the program. Schools will have until June 30 to signal their intent to participate.

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

Contrary to the Office of the President's response status, there are elements of this recommendation that remain unaddressed. The Office of the President sent a standardized email in February 2021 to almost 1,000 high schools inviting them to join the ELC program. This action does not address our recommendation to:

-Determine the reasons why schools do not participate.

-Assess whether the university can address barriers to participation and take steps to do so.

60-Day Agency Response

The University has submitted its first annual report on schools not-participating in ELC to BOARS on 10/20/2020. This spring, UCOP will survey schools to assess reasons for non-participation in order to determine if it is due to lack of knowledge of ELC, lack of resources or something more. For schools where the reason is the latter, simple outreach and encouragement to join ELC will not help students achieve higher levels of A-G completion and general college readiness. Undergraduate Admissions has initiated engagement with Graduate Undergraduate and Equity Affairs colleagues to explore ways in which UC can leverage SAPEP programs and resources such as the Transcript Evaluation Service to further support college-readiness at non-participating schools as well as develop potential efficiencies in data exchange to facilitate ELC participation. Undergraduate Admissions will report back to BOARS annually on its progress.

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

The Office of the President provided its report to BOARS, and the report contained information on the number of schools not participating in ELC as well as the schools' demographics.

The second part of our recommendation is to conduct annual outreach to schools that are eligible for ELC but not participating. The purpose of this recommendation is to encourage more schools to participate to allow students who attend those schools and would otherwise be eligible for guaranteed admission to the University to take advantage of that benefit. This recommendation will be fully implemented when the Office of the President provides evidence that it has conducted outreach to nonparticipating schools and made efforts to increase their participation in the ELC program.

All Recommendations in 2019-113

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.