SAT subject tests may be dropped by UC

The University of California may offer some relief to test-weary applicants by shedding part of a 40-year-old requirement for freshman admission. And many high school students are saying amen to that.

An influential faculty panel wants to drop two of the standardized exams that all applicants now must take for acceptance at UC’s nine undergraduate campuses.

Under the plan, high school students still would need to sit for the basic SAT exam (or the alternative ACT test) but would no longer have to face two additional SAT tests in specific subjects, such as world history, Spanish or chemistry.

Subject tests, previously known as achievement tests or SAT II, have been required by UC in various forms for four decades, even if their existence might surprise and befuddle some parents and students.

Critics of the subject exams allege that they have added little useful information to applications and that missing those subject tests is a major reason that potential applicants with otherwise good grades and SAT scores are ineligible for UC. Disproportionately affected are blacks and Latinos in large urban and rural schools who might not be advised by counselors to take the exams, according to recent studies.

Michael Brown, chairman of the UC systemwide Academic Senate, said discussions indicated that most faculty were convinced that the subject test requirement is “cutting people out of at least a shot of consideration for no reasons that have to do with achievement.” He said he is optimistic the mandate will be dropped as part of an overhaul of admissions standards that is under consideration but will not go into effect for two years or so if approved by the UC Regents.

The subject tests generally are required by only the most elite campuses nationwide. According to the College Board, 71 colleges mandate them and 50 recommend them, both small fractions of the college universe.

For example, Columbia University and Pomona College require them, Stanford University and USC recommend them and the University of Michigan and University of Texas do neither. Last year, 1.5 million students took the SAT and 287,000 took subject tests.

Around Southern California, many students say getting rid of the subject tests would be like lifting one of the rocks from their chests. They say they still would have plenty of other pressures with class work, SAT preparation and, in some cases, the additional and unrelated Advanced Placement tests that can garner college credits.

The subject tests, which involve high school-level material, usually do not lead to college credit.

“I definitely think it would be a good idea,” Andrew Santana, 16, a junior at Loyola High School in Los Angeles, said of the proposal. Teens can feel overwhelmed by repeated testing, he said. He plans to take the SAT and three AP exams in May and then subject tests in U.S. history, English literature and Spanish in June in hopes of landing a spot at UCLA, UC Berkeley or another top-notch school. “I would say the transcript and one standardized test should speak for themselves,” he said.

Laurence Bunin, the College Board’s general manager for its SAT programs, said he wouldn’t argue with UC’s right to set its own admissions policy. However, dropping the subject tests would take away an extra chance for students to “show everything they can do,” he said, explaining that some students do better on subject exams than on the main SAT and some vice versa.

Under the UC proposal, individual campuses and majors could recommend certain subject tests, such as math for engineering schools, and applicants could submit scores on their own to possibly garner attention. But Bunin said that recommending is not the same as requiring.

“Students are kids, after all,” he said. “If any college doesn’t require something, it is less likely the students will do it.”

The main SAT reasoning exam is a three-hour, 45-minute evaluation of more generalized critical reading, math and writing skills in multiple choice and essay form. In contrast, the 19 subject tests that UC allows are one hour each, all multiple choice, and assess mastery of high school courses, such as biology, math and French.

Students can take as many as three subject tests in one day, and the fees can range from $28 for one test to $56 for three, including a foreign-language exam with a listening portion. Fee waivers are available for low-income applicants. Before 2006, UC applicants had to submit scores from the main SAT plus three subject tests, including one for writing. But under pressure from UC, the main SAT was changed and a writing portion was added to it. That took away from the subject tests what many considered to be the most reliable predictor of freshman academic success.

Now students usually choose their two strongest subjects, hardly a level field for admissions decisions, say UC faculty arguing for the change.

Each UC campus makes its own admissions decisions, also using grade-point averages, tests, student essays, extracurricular activities and other factors. A student deemed eligible for the UC system might be denied at the campuses he most wanted but will usually be offered enrollment by at least one other campus with space.

Counselors say they repeatedly remind students about the subject test requirement far in advance. Yet, inevitably, some teenagers contend they were never informed, others forget and some are just unwilling to spend another Saturday morning in a test hall. A few avoid it and focus on campuses, such as those in the California State University system, that don’t require subject exams.

Eileen Doctorow, a college counselor at North Hollywood High School, said students who claim they never heard about the UC requirement “had to be living under a rock.” However, because “they’re kids and they don’t pay attention all the time,” she and other counselors help register panicky procrastinators for last-minute tests in their senior year.

The students who are scrambling at the end “are generally first-generation, lower-income kids who aren’t that astute in the process and don’t have parents guiding them through it,” she said. Dropping the subject test mandate would eliminate an obstacle and “create greater access and greater equity,” she said.

Some UC professors privately wonder whether the proposed change is a way around California’s Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action initiative passed by voters in 1996. Academic Senate Chairman Brown and other advocates of the proposal say it is not designed to boost any particular group, just to take down an unnecessary hurdle.

Ironically, some of the subject tests’ biggest fans are minority families who speak a language other than English. Students who are fluent in a foreign language for which there is a subject exam, such as Chinese, Spanish and Hebrew, are allowed to take such a test and many count on doing well on it.

Denis Furlong, college counselor at Fairfax High School, said he knows that affirmative action is “a thing of a the past” but that the foreign-language tests are an “opportunity to diversify the campuses.”

For example, Fairfax junior Sherry Yi, whose family speaks Korean at home, said she is going to take the Korean-language subject exam, along with other ones. She expects the Korean test will help her UC application but understands why the subject test requirement is debated.

“There are people who are bad at some basic SAT stuff but good at the SAT II,” she said, referring to the subject tests. Any change “is going to benefit some people but not some other people.”

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larry.gordon@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Sample questions

The University of California requires freshman applicants to take at least two of 19 SAT subject tests from the following groups: English, history and social studies, mathematics, science, languages.

Here are sample questions from three tests:

U.S. history

Major population shifts between 1915 and 1980 included all of the following EXCEPT a movement from

A) the rural South to Northern cities

B) New England to the Midwest

C) the North to the Sun Belt

D) the inner cities to the suburbs

E) the Caribbean region to the American mainland

Mathematics Level 2

In a group of 10 people, 60% have brown eyes. Two people are to be selected at random from the group. What is the probability that neither person selected will have brown eyes?

A) 0.13

B) 0.16

C) 0.25

D) 0.36

E) 0.64

Biology

Which of the following most accurately reveals common ancestry among many different species of organisms?

A) The amino acid sequence of their cytochrome C

B) Their ability to synthesize hemoglobin

C) The percentage of their body weight that is fat

D) The percentage of their body surface that is used in gas exchange

E) The mechanism of their mode of locomotion

Correct answers: B, A, A

Source: The College Board and UC