UC Panel Backs Use of SATs for Admissions

A faculty committee reviewing the University of California’s admissions policy came out strongly Thursday against the idea of eliminating the use of SAT scores, saying the standardized tests “have appreciable power for predicting student success at the university.”

Keith Widaman, chairman of the faculty’s Board of Admissions and Relations With Schools, told UC regents meeting here that “it would be unwise” to drop use of the SAT in admissions because there are no other proven tests or measurements that can take its place.

Dropping use of the SAT was proposed in September by the system’s Latino Eligibility Task Force as a way to boost the number of Latinos eligible for the state’s elite colleges. Latinos do not perform as well as whites and Asian Americans on standardized tests.

Since then, however, a UC study has determined that eliminating use of the Scholastic Assessment Test would have unforeseen consequences. Although it would increase the number of eligible Latinos by 5%, it would also increase the number of white students eligible for admission by 14%--at the expense of black and Asian American applicants.

And Widaman, a UC Riverside psychology professor, said Thursday that he recently received preliminary data showing that SAT scores do a better job than high school grades of predicting how well black and Latino students can do college work--a finding contradicting an assertion by the Latino Eligibility Task Force.

Admissions officials say the last thing they want to do is enroll students who are not likely to succeed, and thus set them up for failure. So the board of admissions is considering strengthening the role of the SAT in determining eligibility to the nine-campus system by requiring minimum test scores for all applicants, Widaman said.

As it stands now, applicants with high school grade-point averages of 3.3 or higher only have to take the standardized tests, but do not have to achieve any minimum score.

The board of admissions is also considering other changes in admissions policy, including making the top 4% of each high school’s graduating class automatically eligible for admission and tinkering with the grade weighting system that gives students extra points for taking advanced placement or honors classes.

Although the faculty periodically reviews entrance criteria, many of the changes are being debated now because of actions by the UC Board of Regents and California voters that abolished affirmative action in admissions.

UC admissions officers are in the process of picking next fall’s freshman class without use of preferences for race and gender. Though applications from black and Latino high school seniors were up a bit this year, UC officials expect sharp drops in the number of these “underrepresented minorities” who are admitted to the prestigious state universities for the fall term.

In what is billed as an effort to make sure UC admissions criteria are fair to all students, the board of admissions is rethinking policies that allow students to get an extra point for each honors and advance placement course--so they have weighted grade-point averages higher than 4.0.

Widaman noted that many of the state’s public high schools--especially those in poor rural and inner-city areas--do not offer as many honors and advanced placement courses. Students who attend those schools are at a disadvantaged in competition with students at wealthier schools, who have opportunities to extend their grade-point averages to 5.0.

The board of admissions and UC’s administrative staff are studying the grade-weighting to determine if the extra points help predict how well a student will perform in university classes. If there is little or nothing gained by counting these extra points, Widaman said, the board may discount the practice or eliminate it.

The proposal to make the top 4% of students at each high school automatically eligible for admission is seen as another way to promote diversity in the post-affirmative action era.

Students now compete on a statewide basis to make it into the top 12.5% of high school students, the pool eligible for UC admission. As a result, a third of the state’s 858 high schools send few students to the university--and 50 send none. The bulk of UC students come from a concentration of the state’s best schools in wealthy cities and suburban areas.

A systemwide study concluded that it would also slightly increase the number of black and Latino students eligible for admission, but not significantly diminish the caliber of students attending the university.

The board of admissions called this approach better than one advanced by state Sen. Teresa Hughes (D-Inglewood) as an amendment to the state Constitution. Hughes wants the top 12.5% of each high school class to gain automatic eligibility--a strategy that would greatly increase the number of blacks and Latinos.