Among California high school graduates, Wilbur notes, 31% of Asian Americans are eligible for UC, while African American and Latino students have an eligibility rate of 6%. White students fall in the middle, with an eligibility rate of 16.2%.
Moreover, competition for Berkeley and UCLA is great. Last year UCLA received more applications than any other university in the country.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday January 16, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
UC diversity: An article in Monday's Section A about ethnic diversity at UC Riverside and the University of California reported that about 100 African Americans were admitted to last fall's freshman class at UCLA. UCLA admitted more than 200 African Americans; about 100 enrolled.
One advantage Riverside has in attracting underrepresented minorities is that it draws many of its applicants from the Riverside area, which has a large black and Latino population.
The university reaches out to the community, dispatching students and alumni to high school campuses and local groups. "We make recruiters out of our students," says Alfredo Figueroa, assistant dean of students.
The university also runs summer programs to give high school students a chance to experience life on campus.
With many students arriving unprepared for university-level math or English, even though they are UC-eligible, Riverside provides remedial courses -- which it calls "bridge classes" -- for more than 30% of incoming freshmen.
Such programs can be found at most public and private universities, but UC Riverside is building on its reputation for diversity. It's the inverse of what's happening elsewhere. Since news of UCLA's small incoming black freshman class became public last summer -- about 100 were admitted -- some black community leaders and high school students have questioned whether African Americans should apply to the Westwood campus.
But Riverside was a good fit for Daniel Polk, 21, a third-year Latino student from Moreno Valley who was accepted at UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara. He is happy with his choice. He notes that undergrads get personal attention from their professors and can participate in research projects -- rare at big schools like UCLA and Berkeley, which are nearly twice the size of Riverside.
"It's gone beyond my expectation," he said. "I'm getting everything I wanted out of my college career."
But some students say the university could do more to bring students of various ethnic groups together. There is too much emphasis on racial identity and not enough integration of the student body, they say. Campus clubs too often recruit solely along ethnic lines.
"Everyone is very compartmentalized," says Amanda Moreno, 20, a third-year student who is half Mexican and half Italian. "It's never about integration. It's about making sure we maintain our identity."
