Ellen Benkin encountered such a myth at a California State University campus recruitment fair, where she represented the UCLA Graduate Division. “A student volunteered that he couldn’t possibly apply to a UC for graduate school because he was a CSU student,” recalled Benkin, coordinator of the Graduate Division Information Services. “He said, ‘Everybody knows that if you’re a Cal State student, you stay in the Cal State system.’ I thought, ‘This is nuts!’ But that’s the myth, and that’s what many of their faculty are telling them.”

UCLA students and faculty aren’t exempt from myths about graduate education, either. “Many of our faculty hold that we don’t, for the most part, admit our own students. That’s completely untrue,” said Benkin.

Now Benkin has the data to prove it, and she presented her findings Nov. 3 at the 25th annual conference of the California Association for Institutional Research in Pasadena. She, along with Eric Splaver, Penny Hein-Unruh and others, made up a corps of UCLA researchers and staff members from different areas whose work was featured in workshops, papers and presentations to more than 200 institutional researchers, policy analysts and planners in higher education in California. Association vice chair Robert Cox, campus manager for enrollment planning in UCLA’s Office of Academic Planning and Budget, served as conference chair.

In her analysis of data gathered from 1995 to 1999 on domestic applicants to Graduate Division programs, Benkin found CSU students made up a substantial proportion of UCLA graduate applicants (9.4%), of students who are admitted (7.4%) and of new students who are enrolled (9.6%). Statistics from the schools of Law, Medicine, Dentistry and special fee programs, like the Executive M.B.A. program, were not included.

Similarly, she found that UCLA students were well represented among those who applied for admission to Graduate Division programs (12.1%), among those who were admitted (16.5%) and among those who actually enrolled (21.8%).

Benkin also discovered that UCLA students were more likely to be admitted (52%) than any other group — including students from other UCs and CSU students. And UCLA students made up the highest percentage of admitted students who actually enrolled, the researcher pointed out.

“Another issue often discussed is whether or not CSU undergraduates are coming in as master’s students as opposed to doctoral students,” Benkin said. But she found that the percentages are about the same for both UCLA and CSU students, with the majority, about 77%-79%, aiming for master’s degrees.

In looking at how many students (among those who entered master’s programs in Fall ’91, ’92 and ’93) actually completed their master’s degrees as of Spring ’98, Benkin found that 86.5% of the CSU students had obtained their degree while 82.6% of the UCLA students had accomplished the same objective. “Although the differences are minimal, CSU master’s students are more likely to complete their master’s degrees than the other populations,” she noted.

Among doctoral students, Benkin found 17.8% of the CSU students had obtained their degrees while 19.7% of UCLA students had gotten theirs. The dropout rate for CSU students (16.8%) was slightly higher than for UCLA students (13.2%).

“I hope I’ve dispelled some of the myths and that we can go back to the Cal State schools and tell the faculty to stop telling students not to apply to UCLA,” Benkin said.

“Further, I hope this will encourage others to use data to examine the myths in higher education.”