College Presidents Defend Use of SATs for Admissions

College and university presidents from across the country Sunday defended the SAT as a possibly flawed yet important tool in evaluating students. And many said they were hesitant to follow UC President Richard C. Atkinson in calling for elimination of the test as an admissions requirement.

“At present, it’s the best measure we have for determining the level of preparedness of students and their potential for success,” said Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, which has 10,000 students.

Atkinson “gave legs to a discussion that’s been going on for some time, and the fact that he’s raising it is a net plus,” said Michael F. Adams, president of the University of Georgia. “But I would not jump to the conclusion that all faculties are going to fall in line.”

Others said that dropping the SAT might make it harder for minority students to win admission to competitive schools.

The SAT is a standardized test required for admission to many colleges and universities. About 1.3 million college-bound students took it last year, 12% of them from California. Owned by the nonprofit College Board Corp., the SAT has been accused of cultural bias--using questions that inadvertently favor some racial and ethnic groups over others. Critics also charge that its widespread use distorts educational priorities as teachers devote classroom time to test preparation and parents spend about $100 million annually on private test-coaching services.

The reaction to Atkinson’s call to drop the SAT as an admissions requirement came as he addressed more than 1,000 members of the American Council on Education, which represents a broad cross-section of colleges and universities.

In his speech at the council’s annual meeting, Atkinson criticized the SAT for trying to test innate intelligence rather than mastery of subject matter in fields such as math or English. As a result, parents--especially minority parents--”have no way of knowing what the SAT measures and, therefore, have no basis for assessing its fairness or helping their children acquire the skills to do better,” he said.

Atkinson said he had asked the UC Academic Senate to bar the SAT or any test that aims to measure “notions of ‘aptitude’ or ‘intelligence.’ ”

He said UC should instead adopt a test that measures achievement in subject areas. Until test writers create a test directly tied to the classes that UC requires for admission, Atkinson proposed using the SAT II, which tests for mastery of writing, literature, math, U.S. history and other subjects. Atkinson also called for UC campuses to move away from a formula-driven admissions process and instead to look at applicants in a “comprehensive, holistic way.” His proposals must be approved by the UC faculty’s academic council and by the UC Board of Regents.

Many in the audience praised Atkinson for giving new fuel to the debate over the SAT, a target of criticism for more than a decade.

But some also said it might create problems both for admissions officers and minority students.

Innate skill might help those students do well on the SAT, but they could never compensate for the poor subject-matter preparation they received in failing schools and so would score low on subject-specific tests like the SAT II.

But Atkinson said that UC data shows that “underrepresented minorities do better relative to whites and Asian Americans on the SAT II than on the SAT I,” though they still score below whites and Asian Americans.

He said his staff had not done any projections to show how his proposal would change the racial and ethnic makeup of the UC student body. UC has been working to maintain diversity after being barred from using race as a factor in admissions.

Atkinson said that underrepresented minorities and students coming from low-income families do very well if they know what’s expected of them. Tests like the SAT II lay out those expectations, he said.

More broadly, many college presidents acknowledge that high school quality varies widely.

“The problem is that high school grades are flawed. Letters of recommendation are flawed,” said Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, president of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The SAT, he said, is “of some value.”