The University of California admissions process has rolled out two major changes for this year’s applying seniors both adding only STRESS to the already pressure-cooker process. FIRST, they proudly announce that UC’s will now guarantee to 9% of high school seniors at each high school admission to a UC (up from 4% last year). BUT the only school accepting those students is UC Merced! Those additional 5% would all be accepted at Merced if they applied regularly. Nothing against UC Merced, its a fine school but it like all UC’s does not have every academic major.  Is this a change to help qualified seniors get into a UC or is it a ploy to increase enrollment in UC Merced? You be the judge. NOTE also that this year the most competitive UC’s have all increased their available space for out-of-state students, many by as much as 8%. It does a senior no good to win a ticket on a flight if its not going where he needs to go! SHOULD the student pick the school or UC just slot them into to the flight to nowhere because it has an empty seat. SECOND, UC Board of Regents voted years ago that this year’s seniors would not have to take the Subject Tests. But now they say they will look at them and for competitive engineering programs (every UC that has one is competitive) recommend math and science subject tests. The UC’s didn’t have the backbone to JUST SAY NO to the College Board test machine despite their earlier decision that subject tests unfairly disadvantage certain segments of applicant pool. Money talks more than high school seniors?! 2012 finds UC admissions looking more like “the Great OZ” hiding behind his curtain than a transparent admissions process recognized for non-biased decisions focused on fair review  of the applicants.

Today’s Chicago Tribune names two law schools University of Illinois and Villanova University who have admitted submitting inflated LSAT and GPA figures for their incoming classes to the American Bar Association and US News magazine. The pressures are great to have a high ranking vis-a-vis competing institutions AND to have your ranking continue to rise. We don’t know how many give false reports. For this and other reasons,I counsel my clients that the US News rankings should not be a major factor in selecting a school to attend. For the complete story see:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-1007-chicago-law-20111007,0,6214332.column