Report 2019-113 Recommendation 11 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 #11 To: University of California

To ensure that campuses adequately address deficiencies identified in its own internal audit, the Office of the President should immediately begin to assess whether the campuses have completed the corrective actions they developed in response to systemwide recommendations and should evaluate whether the campuses' actions adequately address the audit's concerns.

1-Year Agency Response

The Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services (ECAS) has completed its independent review and evaluation of the implementation status of all recommendations from the Phase 1 and Phase 2 systemwide internal audits of admissions for all nine campuses. ECAS has verified that all nine campuses have completed the corrective actions they developed in response to systemwide recommendations and that the campuses' actions adequately address the audit's concerns.

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

The Office of the President provided the records that it used to track implementation of its recommendations by campuses, which indicates that all campuses provided documentation to the Office of the President demonstrating that they had fully implemented its recommendations. Therefore, we assess this recommendation to be Fully Implemented. However, as we describe in the audit report, the university's internal audit and its recommendations did not address significant aspects of the admissions process that we reviewed during our audit. Furthermore, our recommendations are stronger than those made by the university's internal audit and address serious deficiencies that it did not identify. Left unaddressed, these issues will continue to harm qualified applicants who apply to the university.

6-Month Agency Response

The Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services (ECAS) has independently reviewed and evaluated the implementation status of all recommendations from the Phase 1 and Phase 2 systemwide internal audits of admissions for all nine campuses. For Phase 1, it has confirmed that all of the recommendations have been fully implemented by seven of the nine undergraduate campuses. For Phase 2, it has confirmed that all of the recommendations have been fully implemented by eight of the nine undergraduate campuses. To substantiate full implementation of the recommendations by the remaining campuses, ECAS is working with them to ensure that outstanding questions on the supporting documentation are appropriately addressed.

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

We reviewed a selection of the recommendations from the University's internal audits and found that the Office of the President has validated the adoption of policies and procedures in response to its recommendations. We will reassess the progress the Office of the President has made in this area at its next response interval.

60-Day Agency Response

The Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services (ECAS) has initiated a review to independently evaluate the implementation of all recommendations from the two-phased systemwide internal audit of admissions at each undergraduate campus, which have previously been reviewed and validated by the campus internal audit departments per UC's standard protocol. As part of this review, ECAS will inspect evidence provided by the campuses to substantiate fully implementation of the recommendations. ECAS will follow up with the campuses on any deficiencies noted to ensure full implementation of the recommendations.

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

We will consider this recommendation fully implemented when the Office of the President provides evidence of its review and confirmation that campuses have adequately implemented the internal audit report's corrective actions.

All Recommendations in 2019-113

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.