relationship of high school characteristics to the selection of undergraduate students for admission to the University of California-Berkeley, The

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 2000 by Chang, Mitchell James

A similar trend was documented for the percentages of AFDC students. Although some differences were found between those admitted and those not admitted in 1998 (1.68 percentage points), the gap almost completely closed in 1999. As with the LEP findings, students who applied to UCB attended high schools that had nearly four percentage points fewer AFDC students than did those who attended the average California high school. For the percentage of students receiving free and reduced-cost meals, a similar gap was found between those admitted and those denied admission to UCB in 1998, but this too almost entirely disappeared by 1999. Similarly, the difference between the high schools attended by those students admitted to UCB and the average California high school was striking. High schools statewide had nearly nine percentage points more students receiving free and reduced-cost meals than did the average high schools attended by students admitted to UCB.

Disparities in Opportunities to Learn

An identical set of comparisons was made for the following educational indicators: percentage of students who graduated, percentage who took one honors/AP course, and percentage who took the SAT (see Figure II). A similar pattern to the one noted above emerged for these three comparisons. Negligible differences were found between admissions status for both 1998 and 1999, but the percentage of students who graduated was slightly lower for the average state high school than for the UCB applicants' high schools. This trend is much more pronounced when the percentages of students who took one honors/AP course and who took the SAT were compared. For both indicators, the averages in 1998 and 1999 were higher for those who were admitted to UCB than for those who were not admitted, although the gap again narrowed in 1999. Thus, compared to their counterparts who were not admitted to UCB, students who were admitted attended high schools that on average had proportionally more students who took one honors/AP course and students who took the SAT. The differences across these two indicators are even more striking when compared to the average California high school. Students who were admitted to UCB attended high schools that averaged over twice the percentage of students who took one honors/AP course and about 22 percentage points more students who took the SAT.

Two other educational indicators were examined. As shown in Figure III, an identical discrepancy surfaced for the average number of honors/AP courses offered. A slight difference, fewer than two courses, was found between the high schools of students admitted to UCB and those not admitted in both 1998 and 1999. Those admitted attended high schools that offered slightly more honors/AP courses. The most striking finding was that the median number of such courses offered by the high schools of students admitted to UCB in 1999 were four times greater than the median number at the average California high school, which offered only 7.9 courses. As for teachers' average years of experience, the differences across the five data sets were minor.