Social class has had more effect on whether a student will attend the University of California system than any other factor, including race, according to a new study of California high schools by UC Berkeley sociologists.
One of five students admitted to the UC system in 1999 came from 100 elite private and public schools, the study of California high schools found. By contrast, fewer than one out of 200 students who were admitted were from schools that had low-income and heavily minority student bodies.
The top "feeder" schools, which send the highest percentage of graduates to UC, are nearly all private and located in San Francisco or Los Angeles suburbs. Many of the schools in the state that send the fewest students to UC are in the Central Valley or in low-income urban areas of Los Angeles County.
It may be no surprise that wealthy students have educational advantages, but "what's surprising is how strong the association is" between affluence and UC admission, said Isaac Martin, a coauthor of the study with sociologist Jerome Karabel and Los Angeles lawyer Sean Jaquez.
Karabel headed a 1989 commission that helped establish UC Berkeley's undergraduate admissions policies with regard to race and class in the 1990s.
The sociologists' study emerges as UC officials find their admissions practices under criticism from a very different quarter. A report by UC Board of Regents' President John Moores recently called into question Berkeley's admission of hundreds of students in 2002 who had SAT scores of 1000 or below. The top score is 1600.
The sociologists' study did not examine SAT scores and grades for individual applicants or schools. But Martin said the probable reason for the dramatic differences in UC admission is that students from better schools have higher test scores and have done more advanced course work.
"Students who go to these privileged schools have all kinds of resources that permit them to meet UC's admissions standards," he said.
Stronger teachers, curriculum and college guidance give "a few lucky students ... a royal road to UC, while others are stuck in schools with almost no access," said Martin, a sociologist with the UC Institute for Labor and Employment at UC Berkeley.
Arcadia High School sent more graduates to UC in 1999 than the bottom 50 schools combined, the study found.
