SAT-I Performs a useful function

1. SAT-I Performs a useful function • UC receives 90,000+ (mostly “UC-eligible”) applicants/year, most of whom cannot be admitted to their first-choice campus, but will be accommodated in the UC system • 2 standardized tests to “assess academic preparation” and “predict success at UC” • Regardless of what it is assumed to measure, SAT-I for 40 years has proven predictive of UC GPAs in all years throughout college,and also of chances of timely graduation • A little redundancy is good

2. Confused reasons for dumping SAT-I (on which its critics disagree) • It is not a significantly worse predictor than SAT-II • It is not underestimating preparation of under-represented minorities, relative to any other academic measures

3. 1) Their sample consists only of UC students enrolled under current policy including SAT-I, and II, and High School grades (no correction was attempted for this “restricted range” problem--footnote 8) Thus they missed the real correlation that would be present if they included significant numbers of students with low SAT-I’s Geiser/Studley sample underestimates SAT-I predictive power in several serious ways

4. 2) The Geiser/Studley report was further compromised by admissions decisions which used SAT-I as a compensating factor for lower HS grades • For example: students in the study with weaker high-school grades tended to have higher SAT-I’s, which was the reason they qualified for admission. • So a spurious anti-correlation between SAT-I and high school grades was artificially injected, which does not in fact exist

5. 3) Studies have shown that students entering with higher SAT-I’s (and SAT-II’s) self-select tougher majors, heavier course loads at UC • Geiser/Studley did not account for the intrinsic differences among UC grades in different courses and majors, with widely varying grading standards

6. Under-represented minorities will fare worse without SAT-I • Studies show that both SAT-I and -II predict higher success at UC for under-represented minorities than they actually obtain. Therefore these students will not benefit in admissions which transfer weight from SATs to high school grades.

7. Arbitrary distinction between “achievement” and “ability” • Can’t define, let alone measure one independently of the other • SAT-I material—verbal and math reasoning and reading comprehension, runs all through 7th-12th grade curriculum, even though no course is specifically dedicated to it • This vague distinction is no basis for eliminating either SAT as “unfair”. Why not simply drop its analogies section?

8. Bad way to “send a message” to high schools and students • If the “message” is “Work hard in jr. high and high school”, it is already being sent, loudly • If the “message” is “UC looks at the entire academic record”, find an easier, more efficient way to make this clear • Middle of senior year is too late for “feedback” to high school students (don’t confuse college admissions with proficiency/graduation testing)

9. SAT-I is by far the most universal of our 3 measures of academic preparation • It is the only direct means of comparing preparation of UC students with the rest of the U.S. (and inside Calif.). Strong academics are same here as elsewhere • Trying to remove UC from the academic competition with leading US universities does not seem feasible. All other universities will continue to measure student qualifications in part with SAT, a process which has served UC well. UC should not seek to seal itself off from comparison with them. • Throwing away the best-established standardized test raises long term danger of eroding academic standards at UC, the foundation of its excellence

10. Other concerns about SAT are unpersuasive • Expensive prep courses for affluent? Objective studies show they add small gains at most • Poor schools wasting too much time drilling? • Undue burden on students? Then why do most of them take more tests than minimum? • Damaging to their self-esteem? Already in top 12.5%, no evidence they suffer from SAT-induced low self-esteem Most would apply more strongly to Achievement tests

11. UC must work very hard with College Board to keep some version of SAT-I • No other large universities, including CSU, are planning to drop SAT-I • Developing, validating, and administering a new parallel test for UC only, that is accepted elsewhere, is highly impractical, if not impossible • It is, by definition, impossible for College Board to create a very new and different test which still has generally accepted “equivalency” to SAT-I • Even if a replacement eventually emerges, its statistical properties will probably be very similar to SAT-I

12. Current admissions system is not so broken that any more major changes are urgently required • If ACT is “fixed”, then no changes in requirements will be needed, since ACT is already accepted. No applicant is compelled to take SAT-I • UC just this year made a major revision to the role of academics in admissions. Prudence dictates that we assess the consequences of these changes before making another radical change. To detect resulting drift in admissions standards, in presence of escalating grade inflation, we now need SAT-I more than before

13. Non-academic and/or subjective factors already loom large in UC admissions • It is almost impossible to get admissions officials to state clearly and explicitly how important non-academic factors have become in last few years (“it’s holistic.”) • Even before comprehensive review was adopted this year, among UCLA’s 6400 Academic Rank 2 and 3 applications, 99.2% of those with “high life challenges” were admitted, but only 18.0% of those with “low life challenges were admitted.