UF Admissions of Minorities Rise [More good news for Jeb's One Florida plan]

The Lakeland Ledger via www.jeb.org ^ | April 8, 2002 | Carrie Miller

[summer]

As Gov. Bush was announcing the Early Reading
component of Just Read, FL!, more good news was
announced about One FL -- UF's increase in minority enrollment.

UF Admissions of Minorities Rise

By Carrie Miller

GAINESVILLE -- University of Florida admissions of black and Hispanic students are higher than this time last year, inspiring "guarded optimism" from university officials that more minorities will show up and enroll.

"It looks pretty encouraging," Provost David Colburn told the UF board of trustees Friday.

Increasing diversity has been a top priority at UF ever since the state banned the use of racial preferences in university admissions in 2000. Beginning with last fall's freshman class -- the first year the ban's effects were felt at UF -- minority enrollment dropped precipitously despite efforts to prevent it from happening.

As of March 28, UF had accepted 1,120 black tudents for next year -- a 13 percent increase over the same time last year. Hispanic student admissions were up about 6 percent over last year, with 1,445 admitted this year compared with 1,359 last year.

But admitting qualified minority students has not, by and large, been UF's problem. It's getting them to show up and enroll.

Less than half of the black students UF admitted last year chose to attend, as compared with 70 percent of whites, trustee Manny Fernandez said.

Competition from Yale, Duke, Harvard and other top schools is fierce for top minority students, Fernandez explained.

"The reality is," Fernandez said, "when you're talking about a 4.1 grade-point average and a 1300 SAT, these kids can go anywhere they want to go."

Despite the increased admissions, "I'm still a little hesitant to declare victory," UF President Charles Young said.

He noted that applications are up all around the country, perhaps because more students are applying to multiple schools.

"Even if our best hopes materialize and a larger number of those students enroll, we're still short of where we want to be," Young said.

To try to maintain its minority numbers, UF has implemented a host of recruitment and outreach efforts, "adopted" five inner-city high schools and added an essay to its application to help identify students who are the first in their family to attend college, among other traits more common to minorities.

This year, trustees are planning to make calls and write notes to accepted minority students and their families.

"I compare this to the last two weeks of recruiting season for college sports," Fernandez said. "Right now, it's all about reaching out to these kids and their families and letting them know how great it would be to be a Florida Gator."

[summer]

This is really good news, because some people said UF would never be able to admit that many minority students under One Florida. I guess those people were wrong.

[summer]

For index.

[summer]

To read more about Gov. Bush's accomplishments in education, click here.

[mafree]

It all sounds good- GO JEB!!

[Kryptonite]

Good to see UF stepping up recruiting efforts. Now it should come closer in line with pre-One Florida levels, on par with the other schools in the state.

[Random Access]

The real test will be in the graduation rate. Prior affirmative action schemes got minorities in but the graduation rates were horrible. Maybe if they are qualified at admission they will actually be able to graduate and benifit from the education. Maybe.

[AmishDude]

You are quite right about graduation rates. This:

when you're talking about a 4.1 grade-point average and a 1300 SAT

will not get most non-minorities into top programs or top colleges. (I am assuming that the 4.1 is out of a theoretical 5.0 weighted average -- which is never possible with gym and art class and the like).

In engineering programs and honors programs, they would be at the bottom end and struggling to pass.

[dalebert]

With so much bad news it is great to hear some really good new.

[summer]

I agree.

[summer]

The real test will be in the graduation rate.

For some reason, this rate tends to be low throughout FL in its 4-year schools of higher ed; yet, FL does very well on the community college level, ranking #11 in the nation in terms of graduates.