As higher education officials nationwide scrutinize the legality of their admissions policies, the race-neutral system used by the University of California could become a model for large public colleges that must redesign the way they select students.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed affirmative action for the first time since 1978, ruling in separate cases from the University of Michigan that officials can use race, but not racial quotas, as a factor when awarding admission.

In her opinion for the 5-4 majority that upheld the consideration of race as a "plus" factor in law school admissions at Michigan, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor suggested, however, that affirmative action won't be necessary in 25 years and that colleges must prepare to embrace a racially neutral system of student selection.

The court's monumental decision has no direct bearing on California, where voter-backed Proposition 209 banned racial preferences from university admissions in 1996. But it is likely to draw sharp interest in how the nation's most competitive public university system is managing its struggle to build a student body that's as diverse as California.

"Admissions at the more selective public universities are going to have to move in the direction that the University of California has gone in; the court has made that very clear," said Patrick Callan, president of the San Jose-based National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

Since 2001, UC admissions officers have judged prospective students using "comprehensive review," a system that calculates not only grades and test scores, but also weighs factors trickier to gauge: talent, leadership, hardship and education levels.

Designed to broaden the pool of students eligible for UC, comprehensive review was pushed by opponents of Proposition 209 as a means of stemming the drop in minority admissions after voters banned affirmative action. The policy of guaranteeing admission to any California senior who graduates in the top 4 percent of his or her high school class also set out to diversify the pool of university-eligible students.

High achievement test scores, strong grade-point averages and advanced coursework still are givens when the UC admissions officers known as readers begin to size up a candidate's strengths. But readers also are trained to look closely at what UC calls the "context of a student's educational experience" -- factors that, because of the enduring links between poverty and race in America, tend to highlight the same groups affirmative action once helped: Did the student have access to a college-preparatory curriculum? Is she the first in her family to attend college? Did he work during high school to support himself and his family?

While race is still a question on UC's undergraduate application, that response is hidden from readers. What remains unclear is whether UC's still-evolving approach will lead to a more diverse student body than before affirmative action was banned.

Even administrators who have embraced the new method worry that it doesn't make up for educational and socioeconomic inequities that many minority students must overcome in their quest to go to college.

Still, admissions figures for the fall 2003 freshman class -- the second class admitted under comprehensive review -- offer reason to hope that the race-free process might work in the long run.

UC gauges its progress in minority enrollment by focusing on African American, Latino and American Indian students, who are underrepresented in the university system compared to their numbers in the general population.

In 1997, the last year race could be used as a factor in admissions, these groups accounted for 18.8 percent of students offered admission to one of UC's eight undergraduate campuses. That figure fell in the wake of Proposition 209.

But in 2003, with comprehensive review under way, African American, Latino and American Indian students made up 19.8 percent of freshmen admissions -- a percentage point higher than the pre-209 figure.

"We feel good about what we're doing, said Susan Wilbur, director of undergraduate admissions for the UC system. "I think it works very well in a highly competitive environment, but it is still very challenging for us to have broad representation at UC."

Wilbur noted that while UC has made gains systemwide, it has not kept pace with the number of minority students graduating high school. In addition, the most competitive campuses within the system continue to struggle to boost minority numbers.

The individualized approach to choosing students makes for a labor-intensive undertaking. Every application for 2003 -- more than 280,000 of them -- had to be reviewed by at least one reader.

At UC Davis, for example, 180 readers, most from the admissions staff and deans' offices, reviewed more than 32,500 applications. At Berkeley, the workload was even greater because officials required each of the 37,000 applications to be evaluated by at least two readers.

Each campus follows the same guidelines for comprehensive review but has discretion in deciding how to weigh an applicant's nonacademic accomplishments.

UC Davis and UC San Diego are the only two campuses that use a computerized scoring system once readers have singled out an application as extraordinary. Davis applicants who stand out for being leaders, having musical talent, showing they have overcome significant obstacles or other nonacademic factors can earn anywhere from 250 to 3,500 points on a scale of 14,000. Academic criteria account for 10,500 points on the scale.

UC officials acknowledge that readers have different views of what constitutes leadership, hardship and talent, but say they minimize the potential for wildly different conclusions with hours of training and tight guidelines.

Davis reader Mark Foncannon says the job is daunting -- he shuts his door, turns off the phone and ignores e-mail when he reads applications -- but trusts that the training and system of checks and balances ensure a fair shake for every student.

Yvonne Marsh, assistant vice chancellor of student affairs at UC Davis, gives the system high marks.

"Even though I don't think comprehensive review will get the gains (in minority enrollment) as rapidly as affirmative action would, I think it's a good system that sends a positive message about the desire of the UC to provide access to all sorts of students," Marsh said. "I think we'd want to keep the process in place even if Proposition 209 were somehow overturned and we could look at race again."

Ward Connerly, a UC regent and architect of Proposition 209, supports comprehensive review and says UC's version is worth replicating at other selective public universities. Still, he warns that the process must be constantly scrutinized.

"There are those who will try to find factors that they presume to be proxies for race," Connerly said, pointing to questions about family income and whether a student would be the first to go to college as potential problems. "The presumption of white privilege and minority disadvantage can really rear its head in the comprehensive review process."

Admissions officials insist those questions are not a replacement for race.

"Objective academic criteria is 75 percent of the weight," said Darlene S. Hunter, associate director of undergraduate admissions at Davis. "We are looking at the entire experience of the student, which benefits those who are considered to be underrepresented and those who are not."

Now, as many universities scramble to broaden their assessments of student candidates, UC's two-year experiment is expected to provide some guidance, even as lawmakers and lawyers are examining how the Supreme Court ruling might bring an opportunity to reinstate affirmative action in California.

"We may not see exact replicas of UC," Callan said, "but they have cut the trail for others in a sense."