Junk Markers

Is the University of California system deceptive about its admissions criteria?

Chirag Asaravala

Its that time of the year when the University of Californias nine undergraduate campuses release their
fall admission decisions to hundreds of thousands of eager high-school seniors. Regardless of what the
decision is, students and parents would all agree the process is extremely arduous, stressful, and even
costly. The process of successfully applying to the UC system in fact begins many years earlier - as an
incoming high school freshman, or even in middle school, when parents and students need to have set
in motion a complex set of academic and nonacademic factors in order for their child to have a chance
at meeting the admissions criteria for each UC campus.

As I go through this process now with my eldest daughter, and despite her having been accepted to
some universities and not others, we are left with more questions than answers. What more could we or
she have done in the past three years? What factors on her application did the various university
admissions teams consider?

For many parents these question may not deserve much mindshare - their child will likely get admitted
somewhere, if not at a UC, and they will be relieved. It all works out is a common phrase of hope
uttered amongst commiserating parents this time of year. I am not placated by this eventuality however.
I have two more kids with whom I will soon go through this process again. As a born and raised (and
tax paying) Californian, I am proud of the academics offered by my state's universities and colleges -
but I am increasingly skeptical of their administrative bodies. For most of the UC campuses, less than
1 out of 3 applicants is admitted; for UC Berkeley and UCLA it approaches 1 in 5. When you factor in
the UC system takes as high as 25-30% out of state undergraduates, your chances as a Californian are
quite meager. If fact, for most of the UCs a non-Californian applicant has higher odds of being
accepted than a native; and conversely California students have as high as 80% acceptance rates at
top public universities outside of the state.

While gaining admission to a UC school is becoming increasingly harder (or more competitive as is
the euphemism the campuses like to use), the real issue in my mind is that the UC is grossly
misleading in what it takes to get accepted. The reason is clear - they cannot supply the demand. In
2016 UCLA had 97,000 applicants; compared to 47,000 ten year prior, and 32,000 in 1998.

Whether this is their fault, the governments fault, all our collective fault, is a topic for another
discussion. What is of concern is the toll this is taking on our students. Were telling very smart kids that
they are just not smart enough - which is ridiculous if you compare them across national averages, or
even to past graduating classes. In the 1990s 75% of UCLA admissions had a 4.0; now it is near 90%;
and the top 25th percentile are fast approaching a perfect 5.0 GPA.

The popular UC Berkeley campus has extensive explanations on its undergraduate admissions website
- but just the sheer number of disclaimers and hyperlinks rather than any sort of concise list of
objectives is daunting. For instance, right off the bat you read that due to the number of applicants they
receive, Cals selection criteria exceeds the UC admissions criteria. This is followed by various linked
pages to academic criteria, such as weighted GPA, pattern of grades over time, standardized test
scores; as well as non-academic criteria such as sports, volunteering, and work. This is bookended by
a reminder that the applicants personal statement essays are also considered. And once you get
through all of that, you can click through to an entire new page about Berkeleys holistic application
review process that factors Personal qualities of the applicant, including leadership ability, character,
motivation, insight, tenacity and L ikely contributions to the intellectual and cultural vitality of the
campus.

In short what Cal and other UCs are saying is very appealing - were not just looking at your GPA and
test scores, were looking at lots of other factors. Great, so how does that actually play out? If we were
to analyze retrospectively the students who were admitted, we should see a nice distribution across all
these various factors, right? Well, in fact, no - we see the opposite.

My day job is consulting for a variety of biotechnology companies. I cant help but draw an analogy.
About ten years ago a diagnostic technology emerged called multivariate predictive analysis. The basic
idea is that you can take several blood biomarkers that are predictive or indicative of a disease and
combine them to get a predictive value higher than any of the variables individually. For instance, while
fasting blood glucose is alone a decent indicator of whether you have, or soon will have, type-2
diabetes - if you analyze other markers together with glucose, the result can predict your chances of
getting diabetes as much as five years earlier. I worked for companies that were using multivariate
models to determine whether a heart transplant would be rejected; a cancer drug would work on a
specific breast tumor type; or what drug dosage would treat rheumatoid arthritis most effectively. While
the science is undoubtedly complex, the concept is understandable with basic math and statistics - the
variables are analyzed by multiple linear regression. If there are a dozen possible markers in blood that
might be indicative of diabetes, you can test each individually and various combinations up to all twelve.
The objective is to find a combination that yields a correlation coefficient greater than any single
marker. For diabetes, for instance, our company found six markers that together did a better job of
predicting diabetes than just using glucose alone. The more important point, however, is weighting. Not
all the variables in the equation are weighted equally, and it is important to know how they are
weighted. If the contribution level of each variable in the equation is not understood, there is the
potential the algorithm is itself not effective and/or is possibly just smoke and mirrors. For instance, if
there are four variables (a+b+c+d=Disease) and variable a is given a weighting of 1000 while b,c,d,
are weighted as 1 (lets assume for simplicity sake all the units are the same in this example and the
universe of possible results for each is 1 thru 10) then you can see how regardless of the various
combinations possible, variable a will always drive the result.

This in fact was one of the scientific critiques of the product developed by the company I worked for.
And this is what I believe is the problem with the UC admission criteria.

Its not clear what weighting, if any, the UC gives to all of the variables it claims to be factored into the
admissions process. UCLA even seems to boast that their criteria carry no pre-assigned weights.
Because the UC publishes some amount of annual data showing how many applicants it received, how
many it admitted, and what the range of GPA and ACT/SAT scores were for admitted students, we can
essentially begin to reverse engineer the algorithm. Just looking at the standard UC application form
itself, we know there are at least the following independent variables: weighted GPA; ACT or SAT test
score; number of AP classes taken; annual hours each of extracurricular, sports, community service;
three personal statement essays; major being applied to; race, gender, gender identity, disability (even
though some UCs say they dont factor these, they are asked for on the form.) Yes despite all these
variables (and more not listed), it is blatantly apparent the vast majority of students accepted are on a
combination of GPA and test scores alone. In other words, those two variables are the highest
weighted by a longshot in their equation - and in fact it is likely all the other variables are what in the
biotech world are called junk markers.

In healthcare junk markers are unethical because they drive up healthcare costs (along with compiling
valuable personal data for no good reason.) If glucose is as good of a predictor of diabetes then why
should you pay for five other blood tests? Yet you can see why companies would want to hide this. A
multi-marker algorithmic diagnostic is way more cutting-edge and lucrative than a half-century old
fasting glucose test.

Is it possible the University of California system is engaging in the same sort of marketing deception?

The UC system was founded with the intent to enable all qualified California students a higher
education; yet most applicants do not get in. This is evident in their eligibility criteria which required a
reasonable 3.0 GPA average along with satisfactory standardized test results and having met the
high-school coursework curriculum minimums. Yet each year, each of the UC campuses, moves their
goalposts closer together. The minimum bar for the ACT composite test score is no less than 26 at
most UCs- yet the national average for high-school students is just 21. At UCLA and Cal the ACT
composite score approaches a near perfect 34 out of 36 at the 75th percentile of admitted students. It is
not likely those same kids are also playing multiple sports, and volunteering in their community, and
working part-time - and you only need access to the high-school data to show that.

If in fact the UC was factoring all, or even just some, of the other variables, and not just
down-weighting them, you would n ot see a continuous rise in average GPA and test scores year after
year. That sort of clustering within a population can only indicate that the dependant variable:
admission to the UC; is dependent predominantly on just those two factors. If it were true that a
combination of academic and non-academic criteria could get you into a UC, then you would see a
distribution of admittance rates across GPA and test scores because statistically there would always be
some portion of students being accepted who weighted higher for factors other than GPA and test
score.

Yet the UC continues to market a holistic approach - and this is as deceptive as charging a patient for
markers that add no value to their diagnosis. Preparing a high-school student for college, particularly a
UC, is expensive. We as parents want to believe that playing multiple sports, taking music lessons,
doing well in non a-g elective classes are all adding value. Yet, it is quite likely they are a waste of
resources. Dont get me wrong, I am not saying that I regret my daughter participating in high-school
soccer, basketball and track; or that she played several instruments and led the high-school pep-band;
or that she views her full-time summer programming internship as a waste of time. Those are of course
great life experiences that she is fortunate to have gained from. What I am saying is that if these factors
do matter, then make all the applicant data available for public analysis (de-personalized of course.)
And if none of these really matter to the UCs, then stop saying they do - because as any parent of a
high-schooler will tell you, it would likely change the advice we give our kids when they ask if it's more
important they go to swim meet or study for their math quiz.

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