University of California to Probe its Admissions Preferences for Friends of VIPs

After an admission last week that well-connected status plays a role in who gets accepted into the University of California system, officials said yesterday (3-18) that a campus fund-raising officer plays an important role in reviewing applications from such candidates at UC Berkeley. A story in Saturday’s Los Angeles Times (3-16) indicated that UCLA has admitted applicants with high-level connections in favor of better-qualified candidates on several occasions. UCLA then would expect favors from the VIPs. The practice of giving preferences to well-connected students bothers critics of the regents’ July 1995 decision to eliminate affirmative action programs to ensure equality for women and people of color in admissions, hiring and contracting.

Democratic assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson says she will seek hearings on the subject in the Assembly Higher Education Committee. "They assume there are one set of rules for common folk and another set of rules for people who have power," said Archie-Hudson, formerly an administrator at UCLA.

See also:
UC System Admits it Grants Preferences to the Children of VIPs

Media Resources: The San Francisco Chronicle - March 19, 1996

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