SAT Scores Only a Part of Admissions Story

Re “Putting Them to the Test,” Jan. 27: John J. Moores, chairman of the University of California Board of Regents, is incorrect in placing SAT scores at the top of the list of criteria for college admission. The test cannot accurately predict how a student will do in a college environment. My own scholastic career bears this out. I graduated from high school with a 4.0 but with an SAT score of 1040. I made the dean’s list every semester while at USC, earning a bachelor of arts degree along with two minors, in English and French. My diploma bears a citation: summa cum laude. I went on to graduate school at UC Irvine, earning an MFA, while many students I knew who bragged about their high test scores went on to make a mess of their lives.

It may be true that the football-playing sons that Moores refers to should not go to a college like Berkeley. However, the reasons for this have nothing to do with their SAT scores. And while Moores may be “fairly indifferent about college for a lot of kids,” those students who are willing to work hard to overcome a low score on the SAT deserve much more from the chairman of the UC Board of Regents.

Paul Tifford Jr.

North Hollywood

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When I started reading your article on Moores, I wondered how someone so ignorant about education could attain his position. Now that I realize it was a political appointment, I have one question: How do we get rid of him? If we remove a politician for selling his office, shouldn’t that also take out the people he sold it to? Isn’t there a removal process for egregiously bad political appointees?

Connie Bastow

Thousand Oaks