BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff

In order to maintain the public’s trust in the integrity of the comprehensive review process used in admissions, the University of California for the first time required some freshman applicants for fall 2003 to verify non-academic information on their applications.

A 10-member committee, chaired by UCLA Director of Admissions Vu Tran, developed the verification policy by which the applications of a random sampling of less than 10% of 77,000 freshman applicants were selected for review.

Students were, for example, asked to produce a copy of an award they said they earned, or a letter from a counselor or coach to back up statements made on their applications. Any applicant found to have falsified information was denied admission to any UC campus, though they could appeal.

“It’s only fair ... to implement such a policy in response to questions and concerns that have been raised about the integrity of the comprehensive review process,” Tran said. “Even though two pilot projects conducted by the Office of the President and UC San Diego last year found no fraud or misstatements among a random sampling of applications, it is still a good policy to have in response to public concerns.”

Individual campuses have always verified the academic records of all incoming students by checking their final high school transcripts. Some campuses have taken the process further. Five years ago, for example, UCLA verified family income for some admitted students using a financial aid database and found no discrepancies with what students had self-reported on their applications. Last year, San Diego verified non-academic data for about 400 students and had similar results, Tran said.

For this process, UCOP staff conducted an initial screening of each application in the sample, and applications with a potential problem were passed on to a committee of admissions officers for further evaluation. Tran said UCOP staff members were discreet when asking about sensitive information on a student’s application. And all information was kept confidential. UC is working on a way to verify family income in the future.

“We are all sensitive to the need not to be intrusive in a student’s life,” Tran said. “In the long run, we will gain a lot more in terms of keeping the public’s trust than we’ll lose by adding this process to our procedures.”