Report 2019-113 Recommendation 2 Responses

Report 2019-113: The University of California: Qualified Students Face an Inconsistent and Unfair Admissions System That Has Been Improperly Influenced by Relationships and Monetary Donations (Release Date: September 2020)

Recommendation #2 To: University of California

To protect the campuses' athletics admissions process from abuse, the Office of the President should require each campus to do the following by the fall 2021 admissions cycle:
- Have at least two reviewers verify the athletic talent of all prospective student athletes before their admittance. At least one of these reviewers should be from a department other than the athletics department. Each campus should develop standards for the level of talent that prospective student athletes for each of its teams must possess and then use those standards to verify the talent.
- Track student athletes' participation in the sport for which they were recruited. If a student does not participate in the sport for longer than one year, the campus should determine the reason why the athlete stopped participating and, if necessary, conduct a review of the circumstances that led to the student's admission to identify signs of inappropriate admissions activity.
- Review donations to athletic programs to determine whether those donations made before or after an athlete's admission may have influenced the athletic department's decision to request the athlete's admission.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From January 2024

In its most recent assessment, the State Auditor's Office noted: "Also, all but one campus has provided documentation of processes for independent review of donations to athletics programs made before or after an athlete's admission." The University has now provided this documentation to the State Auditor's Office for the one remaining campus.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Partially Implemented

The University has provided evidence that each campus has policies to track student athletes' participation in the sport for which they were recruited, and conduct reviews of the circumstances that led to the student's admission when athletes do not participate for longer than one year. Additionally, all campuses have provided documentation of processes for independent review of donations to athletics programs made before or after an athlete's admission. However, the University has declined to require all of its campuses to develop standards for the level of athletic talent that prospective student athletes should have to warrant their admission outside of the standard admissions process. Although two campuses have developed those standards, the remaining campuses have not developed or not provided evidence of those standards. As a result, the campuses are less able to validate that a student recommended for admission to participate on an athletic team actually possesses sufficient athletic ability to warrant admission.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From September 2023

From November 2022 through January 2023, the Office of the President communicated with the State Auditor's office by phone and email to obtain additional detail on the specific documentation for each campus that the State Auditor found insufficient to fully implement this recommendation. Based on this feedback, we followed up with the campuses to update their policies and procedures to address the State Auditor's concerns.

We believe the standards provided by the campuses are sufficient as documented. Prospective athletes may be scouted for talent based on sport, individual position, or general athletic potential to contribute to a team given the level of athletic competitiveness of the program's conference affiliation (e.g., NCAA Division I, NCAA Division III, NAIA). The standards provided are commensurate with these variables.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Partially Implemented

The University has provided evidence that each campus has policies to track student athletes' participation in the sport for which they were recruited, and conduct reviews of the circumstances that led to the student's admission when athletes do not participate for longer than one year. Also, all but one campus has provided documentation of processes for independent review of donations to athletics programs made before or after an athlete's admission. However, the University has declined to require all of its campuses to develop standards for the level of athletic talent that prospective student athletes should have to warrant their admission outside of the standard admissions process. Although two campuses have developed those standards, the remaining campuses have not developed or not provided evidence of those standards. As a result, the campuses are less able to validate that a student recommended for admission to participate on an athletic team actually possesses sufficient athletic ability to warrant admission.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2022

In March and April 2022, the Office of the President communicated with the State Auditor's office by phone and email to obtain additional detail on the specific documentation for each campus that the State Auditor found insufficient to fully implement this recommendation. Based on this feedback, we followed up with the campuses to update their policies and procedures to address the State Auditor's concerns.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Partially Implemented

The status of the University's implementation of this recommendation has not changed substantively since its last update in 2021. Not all of the campuses have developed sport-specific standards for the level of talent that prospective student athletes must demonstrate. Although some campuses provided sport-specific standards, in some cases the standards that campuses developed continue to be vague and nonspecific. Similarly, not all of the campuses have demonstrated that they possess sufficiently independent processes for auditing to ensure that donations did not influence student athlete admissions.

1-Year Agency Response

The University president required all campuses to implement this recommendation and to document the processes and procedures, via a letter sent in November 2020. Local policies and practices are all under the purview of local governance and all campuses have submitted documentation demonstrating a multi-reviewer process, mechanisms for tracking student athlete participation, criteria for assessing talent and an independent donor review process to mitigate fraud and ensure no influence or conflict of interest exists. Additionally, the Office of the President worked with the campuses to clarify and strengthen local policy and procedure language regarding tracking athlete participation in the sport for which they were recruited and investigating when athletes do not participate for at least one year. Each campus also developed protocols to ensure the integrity of the data pulled for donation reviews.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Partially Implemented

The campuses have all generally updated their practices to include an independent review of prospective student athletes' athletic qualifications. However, not all of the campuses have developed sport-specific standards for those qualifications, rendering that review less effective. In some cases, the standards that campuses developed are vague and lack specificity when such specificity was possible. For example, instead of establishing a minimum threshold for how quickly a prospective athlete must be able to finish a race, a campus only stated that it would review prospective athletes' times. In another example from another sport, a campus listed that one of its qualifications was that it was looking for prospective athletes that were highly competitive and hungry to learn how to improve and win. These are, no doubt, important soft skills that campuses would desire in their athletes. However, they do not allow for an independent or objective review of whether the athletics admissions process is being used to recruit legitimate athletes or abused to admit students who have no demonstrable athletic talent.

Similarly, not all of the campuses have procedures for investigating the admissions circumstances of student athletes who do not participate in the sport for which they were recruited. Nor do all campuses have sufficiently independent processes for auditing to ensure that donations did not influence student athlete admissions.

6-Month Agency Response

The University president has required all campuses to implement this recommendation and to document the processes and procedures, via a letter sent in November 2020. Campuses have submitted documents that demonstrate a multi-review process, tracking prospective athletes' participation in said sport and pre-admit and post-admit review of program donors. The Office of the President has reviewed each campus's submissions to ensure the new processes and procedures will address the recommendation. All campuses have completed recommendation 2b and seven out of nine campuses have completed 2d. UCOP has assessed gaps in submitted information related to characteristics for defining standards in the level of talent. UCOP has requested additional documentation to confirm the standards or characteristics for verifying talent.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

The Office of the President acknowledged in its response that the UC has not fully implemented this recommendation with regard to requiring two reviews of athletic talent and the establishment of standard levels of talent for prospective student athletes.

However, the Office of the President incorrectly asserts that the UC has fully implemented the recommendation as it relates to tracking athlete participation in the sport for which they were recruited and investigating when athletes do not participate for at least one year. The Office of the President provided documentation to support the campuses' implementation of that recommendation, but our review of the documentation showed that the majority of the campuses have not adequately implemented it. For example, in accordance with our recommendation, UC Irvine's athletics policy states that its athletics compliance office will review the circumstances surrounding the admission of all student athletes who do not participate for at least one year to identify possible manipulation of admissions processes. However, several other campuses' policies simply state that they will determine whether the athlete has a valid reason for leaving the team, and do not describe any investigation of the circumstances of their admission. Additionally, the documentation that UCOP provided regarding UC San Diego's athletic policies contained no mention of a review following an athlete's early departure from the team.

We will conclude that this recommendation is implemented when the Office of the President provides sufficient evidence demonstrating that all campuses have implemented this recommendation.

60-Day Agency Response

The University president has issued a letter to the campus chancellors to implement this recommendation immediately and provide documentation of follow-through no later than January 15, 2021.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

The Office of the President provided the letter that it sent to the campus chancellors. We will conclude that this recommendation is implemented when the Office of the President formalizes those prohibitions.

All Recommendations in 2019-113

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.