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With tens of thousands of applicants, large, public universities do not have time nor labor to review millions of pieces of subjective material. Instead many assign points for various aspects of an applicant's file and then accept all students above cutoff. While students could get a maximum of eighty points for their GPA and 12 points for their SAT or ACT scores, being from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group would give them an extra twenty points. However, it is still unclear how many minority students would have been accepted without the points that are awarded to students for race.
In examining how enrollment rates changed once the racial preferences were eliminated is another way to decipher the importance of race in admissions. For example, in 1995, the University of California (UC) System ended affirmative action with sp-1. As a result, the proportion of Black students at UC campuses fell below twenty percent from 1995 to 1998, and it fell thirteen percent for Hispanic students (UC 2002). The number of applications from minority students fell significantly at these schools, and therefore, the level of minority acceptances would have fallen even without the elimination of racial preferences. Therefore, it is again difficult to interpret these numbers in a straightforward manner as evidence of racial preferences in higher education. The application, admissions, and enrollment process is a complex one I which many factors play a role in determining minority student attendance. Any alternative to affirmative action must work effectively to promote minority student involvement at each stage.
Percentage admission plans have been the most visible alternative to affirmative action. These policies have been used in Texas, California, and Florida which guarantee college acceptance to a top segment of the graduating high school classes within the state. The logic behind the percentage plans as an alternative to affirmative action rests on the assumption that in order to maintain racial diversity near affirmative action levels, these policies must rely on racially segregated high schools.