Students petition for U. of California-Santa Cruz to reverse revoked admissions

Jamie Altman | Chapman University

A prospective University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC) student started a petition on change.org after, according to the petition, the university rescinded the admissions of hundreds of students.

The petition, which was created in mid-July, has more than 1,500 supporters. It alleges students transcripts were due July 1. But students who claim to have turned their respective transcripts in say the university did not receive them.

"Some of us were required to turn in a transcript for a class that did not even end until after the deadline," Guy Fawkes, the creator of the petition, wrote. "Some of us turned in our transcript on time only to find that the transcript was not open until after the deadline."

This, Fawkes said, resulted in the cancellation of admission.

@jackieschiffner @mulanjpg I got my college admission revoked, along with everyone else going there from Marina bc of late transcripts — Chris Connelly (@ChrisJ_Connelly) July 20, 2015

"The petition is correct in that we did end up canceling hundreds of students' admissions," Michael McCawley, the director of admissions at UCSC, told USA TODAY College.

McCawley explained that every student, at the time of his or her admission, must sign a conditions of admission contract, which states that prospective students must certain grades -- C or better -- during their senior years. The contract then, according to McCawley, instructs students to send in their transcripts by July 1.

"If students are interested in accepting our offer of admission, the first thing they have to do is agree to the terms," McCawley said. "They acknowledge what will happen if they fall short."

In other words, their admissions will be rescinded.

In regards to the university's admissions office losing students' transcripts, McCawley said, "I am not going to say that we're perfect, but I am going to say that we had a large team of admissions people that were dealing with records on a daily basis."

Although an appeals process exists, McCawley said, on average, it can take approximately seven to 10 days to complete. Many high schools have taken responsibility for a student's failure to provide a transcript. Some schools' academic years, as cited by Fawkes, did not finish until mid-June -- a scenario McCawley said would be exempted through the appeals process. But most appeals, he said, are taken on a case-by-case basis.

He added that in the weeks leading up to the July 1 deadline, the university sent weekly reminder emails and also granted extensions to those whose high schools could not provide a transcript in time.

"One of the reasons we need those official transcripts is because up until that point, we have only received self-reported grades and test scores," McCawley said. "Over the summer, we are taking the self-reported information and comparing it to the transcripts."

McCawley notes this protocol is standard among University of California schools.

But the petition argues UCSC over-admitted more than 1,000 freshmen for the fall quarter, insinuating that rescinding the admissions was an effort to compensate for the affected class.

Although McCawley did admit that more students accepted their admissions offer from UCSC than his team had anticipated, he confirms that it is only about 100 students over what they expected.

"They could be mixing issues here a little bit," he said. "If we ended up having all of our students meet the conditions of the admission contract, we would not cancel [their admission]."

Some of the people whose admissions were revoked commented on the petition, revealing another problem created by the university's move. The rejected prospective students noted that, because they planned to attend UCSC, they had declined admissions to other schools they applied to. This, they noted, left them with no alternate options.

"By signing this petition, you give all of us a little hope to become the engineer, doctor, lawyer, and other professions we always aspired to become," the petition reads. "By signing this petition, you can put us back on track for what we have been working toward for our entire life."

Summer orientation for UCSC freshmen is July 21 to 29. McCawley says that students with revoked admissions can still attend orientation and receive advising, but they cannot enroll in classes. He notes that there is also a welcome week before the first week of classes for the students who get re-admitted to UCSC but miss orientation.

"We take this very seriously," he said. "This is not easy for students or families or veteran admission officers, but it is what we end up having to do at selective universities."



Jamie Altman is a Chapman University student and member of the USA TODAY College contributor network.

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