Should UC Do Away With the SAT?

Eugene E. Garcia, dean of the School of Education at the University of California at Berkeley, led the task force that created an immediate controversy with its proposal that UC stop using SAT scores in admissions to its nine campuses. His Latino Eligibility Task Force said scrapping the Scholastic Assessment Test--on which students from some minority groups tend to get lower scores--would increase the percentage of Latino high school graduates eligible for UC from 4% to more than 6%. But critics said the task force was trying to get around bans on affirmative action in admissions ordered first by the UC Board of Regents and then by voters when they approved Proposition 209. Garcia spoke to Times education writer Richard Lee Colvin.

Question: What’s the best argument you can make for not requiring students to submit SAT scores?

Answer: There are two arguments. Does the SAT tell us who is going to do well in college? Then, even if it does add value or predictability, does it--because of its very nature--do so at the cost of another policy that says we want to be sure that the university is open to all? Our evidence is that the SAT requirement fails on both of those counts.

Q: What kind of mail have you gotten since the recommendation?

A: I’ve gotten more mail than I’d ever anticipated, and the mix is more to the negative. I’ve gotten lots of people writing about their overall concern that by eliminating the SAT or making it optional that we are going to reduce standards. The second kind of mail has been very specific--”My daughter got a great SAT score and eliminating the SAT as a requirement would put her at risk of losing an opportunity of a lifetime if this achievement isn’t considered.” The third kind is hate mail that says this is not a research study, it’s a biased political report, that this is nothing more than trying to reverse 209, and “Oh, by the way, I notice your last name is Garcia.”

The other side of the coin is I got two wonderful letters. One was from a parent who said, “I appreciate your doing this. I did not do well on the SAT and neither did my kids and we’re pretty good people.” Another was from a student who indicates she’s taken advanced placement courses in calculus, physics and Spanish and gotten A’s. She’s won awards for her contributions to the student newspaper. She’s a student body officer, has won state and regional awards for her dancing and she has a 3.94 grade-point average. But she is very worried that because she scored an 880 [out of a possible 1,600] on her SAT, it will leave her out of going to a good university.

I would feel terrible if this university left that person out.

Q: Getting into the best colleges should be competitive, shouldn’t it, given that those seats are in high demand?

A: The University of California is a public institution, and once a student meets eligibility standards, that person is guaranteed a place. That’s what our task force is concerned about. We want more students to become eligible who might not otherwise because of the SAT requirement.

The second level is competitiveness for admissions to some schools. At Berkeley, we get 27,000 applications and can accept only 4,000 students. So we have to make a decision informed by a number of different variables and one of them might be the SAT, and I have no problem with that.

For the student I just described, I wouldn’t need the SAT to admit her. For other students who didn’t excel in their classes, didn’t take advanced placement courses, those students should be able to put forward their SATs and we should consider them along with other indicators: references, portfolios of academic work, anything that allows admission.

Q: Are you concerned whether the additional students made eligible would be as qualified for college work?

A: About 300 universities and colleges do not require the SAT. We can look at a very distinguished college such as Bates College in New England. Ask them, “Are you getting a lousier student?” So I’m not worried, quite honestly.

Q: Isn’t this just bending the rules for those who can’t win the competition?

A: I don’t think it’s bending the rules. It’s adjusting the rules so we can, in fact, have an even playing field. Those folks who win races and do it on the basis of bad rules would always argue that they won fair and square. We’re arguing UC should rethink their definition of fair.

Q: Is this a way to get around the decision to end affirmative action?

A: We started in 1992. It was not done hastily, and it was not done in response to 209.

Q: If the fundamental problem is that some high schools prepare students better than others, shouldn’t the solution be to improve the quality of weaker schools?

A: Your question assumes it is the quality of schools that determines whether students do well on the SAT. The strongest correlation with SAT scores is median family income. It could be that the very best high schools in California are just serving kids who are very well prepared.

Q: Other recommendations include improving outreach programs and increasing transfers between community colleges and UC. Wouldn’t those recommendations do more to ensure that students are the sort who will do well at UC once they got there?

A: We see this as a package. We don’t see any one of these things alone. But put together, they would really be powerful. We’re not ready only to do outreach or community college bridge-making or only eliminate the SAT.

Q: If grades were the determining factor in admissions, wouldn’t it give high school teachers a strong incentive to inflate them?

A: I guess so. But I see no empirical evidence of it. We do have evidence that the SAT loses us 2,000 Latino students this year alone.

Q: Without the SAT, how would you compare students from different school districts, or from other states?

A: For out-of-state students, we might want to use the SAT. But 90% of our students come from California.

Q: If the SAT is biased against minorities, why do Asian American students do so well?

A: I have a colleague here who argues that Asian first-generation immigrants are very clear that education is going to make a difference in their lives. But when we take a look at SAT scores for Asians, we find the same as with everybody else--the more income, the more likely the student is to do better.

It’s the math where the Asians essentially do better than anybody else. The difference between Asian students and Latinos is 8% on the verbal test, but it’s 30% on math.

I can’t explain why that is the case. But it is.