UCLA struck by admissions fixing row

The admission allegations centre around the university’s orthodontics programme, a highly competitive postgraduate course.

In twin scandals, the UCLA School of Dentistry, US, has been accused of unfairly favouring relatives of major donors, and of student cheating on licensing examinations, university officials have said.

The American Dental Association (ADA) is investigating reports of students improperly obtaining questions to an exam forming part of the license qualification process. Students from New York University and Loma Linda University are also alleged to be involved. Local newspaper reports suggest the information relates to questions that appear in the American Dental Association's National Board Dental Examinations.

Meanwhile, campus newspaper The Daily Bruin has published a detailed account of allegedly preferential treatment given to the relatives of donors for the dental school's highly sought after orthodontic programme. An average of six positions are offered each year, and are hotly fought over by students. The article, which claimed to be based on examinations of hundreds of pages of e-mails and internal documents, said that admissions standards were lowered for relatives of patrons who pledged hefty financial gifts, one as high as US$1 million.

The Daily Bruin's months-long investigation, coupled with an independent audit conducted this year, has driven changes in the School of Dentistry's admissions policies, university authorities said. Admission to desirable programmes must now be reviewed by a special admissions panel to resolve potential conflicts of interest.

No-Hee Park, dean of the School of Dentistry, maintained that the programme was fair and merit-based.

"While an independent investigation requested by acting chancellor Norman Abrams found no credible and convincing evidence to support allegations of a legacy programme in the orthodontics admissions process," Park said, "it did provide us with an opportunity to review our admissions policies and procedures and make improvements in the areas of oversight and transparency."

Lawrence Lokman, UCLA's assistant vice chancellor of communications, added the facility was also cooperating with ADA enquiries and was hopeful the matter would be resolved "quickly and fairly".

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