A year after an admissions scandal exposed widespread fraud at some of the nation’s elite colleges, a new state audit on Tuesday revealed the UC system improperly admitted dozens of wealthy or well-connected students to the state’s most coveted public universities over more deserving applicants.
Four UC campuses — Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara — admitted 64 applicants between the 2013-14 and 2018-19 academic years based on exaggerated athletic ability, family donations, relationships to campus staffers and other factors. Most of the students were White and came from families making at least $150,000 a year. At least 42 of those applicants were admitted to UC Berkeley.
Could this be Varsity Blues, part 2? In March 2019, the nationwide scandal rocked the higher education world when a college admissions counselor was exposed for helping a who’s who of Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Wall Street-connected parents falsify test scores and athletic accolades, and pay hefty sums to bribe their kids’ ways into selective colleges.
As part of the fallout, a soccer coach at UCLA admitted to taking money in exchange for falsely labeling two applicants as prospective student athletes, and a sailing coach at Stanford was fired after helping funnel donations to the school on behalf of two sailing recruits. But overall, just a handful of students actually gained admission to California universities as part of Varsity Blues.
Tuesday’s audit of the UC system found many more, including 22 students who were admitted through the athletic admissions process “even though they possessed little athletic talent.”
Thirteen of those admissions occurred at UC Berkeley, which was not implicated in the earlier scandal. Another four were at UCLA, one at UC San Diego and four at UC Santa Barbara.
The athletes who received preferential treatment came from what are generally referred to as the Olympic sports, such as soccer, water polo, crew, track and field, golf and swimming. None played football or men’s basketball.
“This audit is surprising in that it’s so late,” said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor based in Los Angeles. “It should have happened well over a year ago.”
Inappropriate admissions overall were particularly prevalent at Cal, according to the audit.
“The pervasiveness of this problem at UC Berkeley demonstrates that campus leadership has failed to establish a campus culture that values commitment to an admissions process based on fairness and applicants’ merits and achievements,” the audit said.
The audit found 17 applicants at Cal admitted because of connections to donors or potential donors and 11 because of connections to campus staff, university staff or acquaintances of campus staff. In one case, a UC regent — a member of the body that oversees the system — wrote a letter to UC Berkeley’s chancellor in support of an applicant despite UC policy saying the regents should not “seek to influence inappropriately the outcome of admissions decisions.”
In a letter to the campus community Tuesday morning, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ called the allegations “highly disturbing” and vowed to look into the problem.
Christ said the school made some changes after an internal UC admissions audit completed last year revealed weaknesses. Those changes include preventing any individual person — the admissions director included — from determining the final outcome of a student application.
Under UC policy, donor ties are not supposed to be considered in admissions, and communication between development staff and admissions staff are prohibited during the application review process.
But the audit found that at UCLA, development staff and athletic coaches admitted an applicant based on a connection to a “significant” donor after the applicant was initially denied entry through the regular admissions process.
Following the Varsity Blues scandal, UCLA said it created safeguards to prevent a repeat of that type of situation. The incident cited in Tuesday’s audit occurred prior to those safeguards being implemented, according to a school spokesperson.
Rahmani, the former prosecutor, was skeptical the U.S. Attorney’s Office would get involved in the transgressions cited in the audit. Unlike Varsity Blues, which featured bribes to coaches, the payments at UC took the form of donations to the schools. Nor is there any sign of cheating on SATs and ACTs.
“I’d be surprised if it became a criminal case unless there’s something we don’t know about, like bribes or cheating,” Rahmani said.
And federal prosecutors might not view the inappropriate admissions as worthy of their time given the precedent for light sentences established in the Varsity Blues scandal, Rahmani said. Actress Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, received just two and five months in prison, respectively, despite paying $500,000 in the admissions scheme.
The audit, which refers to the individuals involved only with generic titles like “donor” and “assistant coach,” cautions that the 22 inappropriate athletic admissions identified are likely just a fraction of the true total. The auditor’s office said it did not name those involved to protect student privacy.
In a statement, new UC President Michael Drake said he takes the audit findings seriously and has zero tolerance for such behavior.
“The university will swiftly address the concerns the state auditor raised. Furthermore, individuals involved in improper activities will be disciplined appropriately,” Drake said. “Our entire organization is committed to a level playing field for every applicant. Unethical means to gain admission, as rare as they may be, run contrary to our longstanding values of equity and fairness.”
Drake said UC will review the audit findings, coordinate with campuses and map out next steps in the coming weeks.
The audit recommends that by next school year, campuses verify applicants’ athletic talents and review donation records before admitting prospective student athletes. It also suggests that the UC Office of the President oversee UC Berkeley’s admissions process for three admissions cycles “to ensure that the campus provides a merit-based admissions process that is free of improper influence.”
