UCI Podcast: Insights into college admissions

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In this episode of the UCI Podcast, we’re going to dive into the applications process with an insight into undergraduate admissions. Joining Sheri Ledbetter is Dale Leaman, the executive director of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Leaman brings an extensive background to higher education with 27 total years with the University of California and the last 10 with UCI. He’s been the executive director of undergraduate admissions for the past four years.

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TRANSCRIPT

Sheri Ledbetter:

So, the application data for the UC system was just released for fall of 2023, and UCI is experiencing a third consecutive year of record breaking numbers of applications with more than 143,000 aspiring first year and transfer students seeking to become Anteaters this fall. UCI is also in the top four universities in the nation in terms of number of applications received for the past seven years. Now, what do you attribute this growth to? I mean, this is really phenomenal.

Dale Leaman:

It’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty amazing, but there’s no one answer to any of that. Sheri. Like most things in university admissions, there are a lot of factors that play at once. First, we’re in one of the most vital and dynamic metropolitan areas of the country in terms of economics and population. Added to that, the reputation and prominence of the campus has been steadily growing, and in some ways this is a case of the numbers just catching up to the reality. Besides that, our outreach team on our staff has done an amazing job connecting to students throughout the entire length of California, across the country and around the world. And frankly, if anyone visits our campus and our city, they really do sell themselves.

Sheri Ledbetter:

I couldn’t agree more. It’s a beautiful campus. If you don’t mind, I’d like to start with the basics. There’s been a lot of questioning about how the admissions process works. People don’t always understand it. So, if you could talk about, maybe give us a one two primer on the admissions process. For example, what happens between November 30th, which is the deadline to submit an application in the UC system, and May 1st when students must submit their intent to register, or as we say SIR.

Dale Leaman:

Sure. The first thing that happens on our end is every application is read and assessed by at least two trained readers who are all UCI employees. Some applications are read three or four times even, depending on the major or the application itself. While all that’s going on, we’re also evaluating all of the transfer applications to confirm that applicants are completing all of the transfer and grade requirements. This is to ensure that incoming transfer students are fully prepared to start their upper division when they get here.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Right, right.

Dale Leaman:

Sometime in January we’ll get our campus enrollment targets from the state and the UC system office and talk to our campus partners about their capacities and any desires to grow their departments. That’s when we start looking at how many students we can admit and how many to each major. Knowing that these are all fantastic students who are likely to get multiple offers from many other universities, we typically release our decisions in mid-March for first year applicants and early April for transfers. Then, as you mentioned, first year applicants have until May one and transfers until June one to submit their statement of intent to register.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Okay. So that’s basically the process in a nutshell. That’s helpful. I would, I also want to ask too, and you know, in the past several years in particular, there’s been what I consider a significant increase in the interest in the admissions process. And not only from potential students and their parents, but also from the media and other interested publics. And I think it’s largely due to the  increasingly selective nature that comes with receiving more applications. And it seems like many people are looking for that silver bullet. For example, if I just do this, then I’ll have a good chance of getting accepted. But it’s more nuanced, I think, than that with, like you said, different demands for different majors and other factors at play. And I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about that.

Dale Leaman:

So, sure. First UC uses what’s called holistic admissions. That means for the selective campuses like UCI, there is no single numeric factor like a GPA or an AP score that’s going to guarantee admission. We consider every aspect of the application, including the responses to the personal insight questions, and the major you’re applying to can make a huge difference in your chances of being admitted. Almost 60% of our first year applicants apply to only 10 majors, and none of those majors have anywhere close to the capacity needed to admit all of the exceptional applicants who apply.

Sheri Ledbetter:

So, what would be an example of a competitive major, for example, at UCI?

Dale Leaman:

Oh, all the ones you would think: biological sciences, computer science, mechanical engineering,  and undeclared even is selective. It really is the majors that most people think about when they think about high demand majors. Nursing is very selective, for example.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Right.

Dale Leaman:

Okay. Someone’s going to be offended when they hear this and think though I didn’t mention their major, but …

Sheri Ledbetter:

But those are the ones that are most, tend to be most in demand.

Dale Leaman:

Business administration, for example, very much in demand.

Sheri Ledbetter:

So, and that has an impact into the applications process in terms of demand and capacity, and so it’s not necessarily a level playing field, if you will, across all the majors. Is that fair statement?

Dale Leaman:

Well, I don’t know if I would say it’s an unlevel playing field. Because we’re trying to identify fantastic students and exceptionally talented students, no matter what their area of interest. We ask students to apply to specific majors, but we also ask students to enter an alternate major. So, if they’re not able to be admitted to their first choice major, we are always going to try to find a way to admit exceptional students.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Okay. That’s helpful. I also want to ask you, in the past few years we’ve had some outside forces impacting admissions; the pandemic obviously and the UC system going test blind. So, can you talk a little bit about how those impacted applications and the admissions process?

Dale Leaman:

Sure. So just in case anyone’s wondering, we absolutely do not even see exams scores.

Sheri Ledbetter:

You mean SAT and ACT scores?

Dale Leaman:

Yes.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Versus AP?

Dale Leaman:

Right, versus AP or a level or any of the other exam scores.

We use the phrase “exam free” when we talk about this. We are exam free when it comes to SAT or ACT. None of the campuses used standardized exams in the way that there was some fear about. In other words, it was never a single factor determining admissions. But the exams did provide some long-term data for us – especially in math – about how likely a student was to be successful once they were here at the university. So losing that bit of data made selection challenging for them. However you think about the exams, whether you think we should have kept them or you’re happy that we don’t have them, losing that data was a challenge for us. And I think the data shows this, that more students in those first two years after we dropped the exam requirement, more students applied who thought that they would have a chance to get admitted to the exceptionally selective universities. And more students applied to the selective campuses because they felt that without that exam score, they had a chance to be admitted. And I think that’s why you saw these upticks, especially at Berkeley, LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara and us.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Right. Because they felt without submitting a test score, they’d have a better chance at being admitted. Interesting. So, what would you say to students who want to apply to and attend UCI?

Dale Leaman:

Well, first make sure you’re doing well in class. Let’s, start with that. Study for your calculus exam, study for your history exam. But also look for ways in your own situation to be engaged in your community, to prepare for your major if you’ve chosen one, and to take advantage of the opportunities that you have. I know that students sometimes think that they need to have some remarkable story about overcoming some extreme hardship or some really dramatic contribution, but that’s really not what we’re looking for. It’s not the only thing we’re looking for. We want students to be, to demonstrate their engagement, and we want students to be active in their communities, and we want students who are demonstrating that they are going to be successful here and managing multiple responsibilities.

I know that sometimes we talk about activities, co-curricular and captain of the football team, all those kinds of things. When we read files, it doesn’t matter really. I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter, but students can be successful who are playing cello in their orchestra, who are captain of their volleyball team, who are the lead in their school play. But students also are successful who are doing things in the community or with their family, like taking care of their siblings, like working in their parents’ dry cleaning shop at night. These are all examples that make a difference to us when we’re reading the file. These are students who are demonstrating that they can be successful in difficult situations.

Sheri Ledbetter:

So, when you, when you see an application from a student, what do you see and what do you not see?

Dale Leaman:

Good question. So, we see everything that they entered into the application, the UC application. All nine undergraduate campuses share the same application.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Right.

Dale Leaman:

We don’t see their name, we don’t see their ethnicity, we don’t see their age, we don’t see race, we don’t see any of those things.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Do you see their gender?

Dale Leaman:

We do not see their gender unless the student mentions it in one of their personal insight questions or one of the responses. We make no decisions or have any data around those things for the reader to see. We eventually have that data later on for analysis, but none of those factors play any part into our read factors. Just to say something about the PIQs though, the personal insight questions, I think that students sometimes think that they need to tell some kind of elaborate essay here. And I’ve been to many sessions about university, you know, the college essay guy or this person or that person who’s doing a presentation about writing their college essay. And I’ve seen these elaborate demonstrations, but that’s really quite good writing, but doesn’t actually address the questions that we’re asking on the UC application.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Oh, interesting.

Dale Leaman:

So I think when you talk about what would I suggest for students to do when you’re writing your personal in insight question responses, when you’re writing your responses to the personal insight questions, answer the question. Be honest, be direct and be clear. Think of it as a job interview. And most importantly, and this is common for every UC, focus on your own experiences. We read many, many moving and touching essays and responses that are talking about the student’s family or the student’s grandfather or how their family came to be in this country. And all that’s really interesting and really moving, but it doesn’t tell us much about the student themselves. So, when you’re writing this response, focus on yourself and your own experiences.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Ah, interesting. That’s kind of a good pro tip I would say. Dale, you and I have done a number of press media interviews together because of this increased interest in applications and the process behind it. And something I’ve heard you say many times is “the holistic review.” Can you talk a little bit about what, what you mean when you say we we do a holistic review?

Dale Leaman:

Sure. So there are 13 factors that have been approved by UC faculty. UC admissions is faculty driven, faculty managed. We, every campus has a faculty committee that works on a faculty admissions policy. And there’s a system-wide group of the chairs of those committees who works on admissions policies. Policies are all set at that level, not in the individual campus level. Those 13 factors have been approved and have been used for decades as far as I can recall …

Sheri Ledbetter:

For a long time…

Dale Leaman:

For a long time. And of course, grades are one of those factors. Success in honors classes or AP classes, that’s a factor to consider. But there are also many other factors like community engagement, like activities like, curricular co-curricular activities, like the context of the student in their own school and the context of the student in their own individual experiences. So, we understand that students in various places have different opportunities. We understand that not everybody can be an intern at a biotech company. And maybe 4H is the most interesting thing at your school. We understand that those are the things that we take into consideration, the student’s context, not just of their school, but their own personal situation.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Right. Their environment.

Dale Leaman:

Their environment.

 Sheri Ledbetter:

Right. I think that’s super important. So that’s part of what you mean when you talk about the holistic review.

Dale Leaman:

Right. We’re considering the entirety of the application.

Sheri Ledbetter:

You know, you touched on AP, advanced placement classes and grades. How are those used in the admissions process?

Dale Leaman:

So, for an AP course and some other honors courses or college level courses, you get a bump on your GPA calculation for that. We cap that so it’s not sort of an infinite number of bumps for an infinite number of AP courses. That’s capped at eight semesters. And so there’s a sort of maximum to the GPA a student can earn. We also consider, for certain majors, we also consider the success in those courses to be appropriate preparation for the major at UCI. So, AP calculus, and, you know, calculus demonstrates that a student is ready to be a math major, for example, depending on the scores, of course, on their exam. It also demonstrates that they have some abilities in the kind of thinking that goes into computer science. So, I don’t want to give the impression though, that those are guarantees or requirements, but it’s an indication of a student’s ability or preparation or readiness for the major at UCI.

Sheri Ledbetter:

So what you see is the impact to the student’s, to the applicant’s rather GPA, and then depending on the course, a potential for success in a particular discipline.

Dale Leaman:

Sure. And that could even be something like environmental science. I mean, I just use calculus as an example. It could be AP music, AP Music Theory could be an example of a student’s preparation to be a music major.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Okay. I wanted to ask too, so this is taking it out of UCI into the UC system, which was designed really to serve the whole state, the whole state of California, and then bring it back to us and ask you how has UCI delivered on that? In terms of, for example, diversity or first generation college students, students who identify as low income, just the sheer geography of our state, however you want to approach that. How has UCI delivered on that?

Dale Leaman:

Well, this is one of the factors that we’ve talked about in nearly every media interview that we’ve done. We’re serious about our obligation to the citizens of the entire state of California. We know that this is the University of California first. The regent’s policy is pretty straightforward, and I’m going to paraphrase from memory here: “recruit, admit and enroll exceptionally talented students who reflect the broad diversity, both geographic and social economic of the state of California.” So, we have a responsibility to be connected to schools and communities throughout the entire state. I tell my staff, and I apologize for the alliteration, that we should be recruiting from Calexico to Crescent City. I’m happy to say that we have applicants this year from 57 of the 58 California counties, which means I guess we need to make a trip to Alpine County here pretty soon. I think the population there is 1200 total. But we are serious about that. And I think that that’s not only helping us reach communities in more rural and distant areas, but I also think it’s helping us reach a variety of communities in different kinds of socioeconomic situations.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Sure. Well, good. Is there anything I didn’t maybe specifically ask you that you’d like to touch on with regards to the admissions process? Something that comes up?

Dale Leaman:

Nothing that I can really think about. I know that there’s always an interest in sort of seeing behind the curtains. And I would just like to say that we don’t really have curtains,

Sheri Ledbetter:

Right.

Dale Leaman:

We’re a public university and we’re going to talk about our process. Not everybody likes the answers. They want to know if I get a 4.0 GPA and I’ve taken this course and this course, can I be guaranteed admission? But we use the holistic approach. And I think that it’s, it’s great to have a conversation like this where more people can hear about the sort of behind the scenes, if you want to say or just the kind of processes that we go through and the thinking that we go through. We don’t take any of this blithely. We’re not cavalier about any of our decisions. We’re very thoughtful about what we’re trying to do here. And, and I think that that’s important for people to understand.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Right. Because it’s gotten more competitive. These are really impressive students and we can’t take all of them.

Dale Leaman:

That’s right. And, I’ve been asked, “don’t you just wish there were fewer applications?”

Sheri Ledbetter:

Oh, really?

Dale Leaman:

No, we don’t want fewer applications, but it just means you say no to more students. But the students we say yes to are phenomenal and that’s what we’re looking for. And I think that all of my colleagues at the other UCs would be saying the same thing.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Sure. And, and I’m certain that there’s students when we have, have to say no to that are equally as phenomenal in their own way, and it’s just the nature of the beast of the applications continuing to grow.

Dale Leaman:

That’s exactly right.

Sheri Ledbetter:

You can learn more about the Office of Undergraduate admissions@admissions.uci.edu for the latest news. Be sure to check out @UCIrvine News on Twitter or online at news.uci.edu. The UCI podcast is a production of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs at the University of California Irvine. I’m Sheri Ledbetter. Thank you for listening.