UC chief: It’s time to drop SAT, ACT
Decision follows years of debate over tests’ fairness
University of California President Janet Napolitano is recommending that the 10campus system drop the SAT and ACT testing requirement and replace those standardized tests with a newly created admissions test in a move that could swiftly reshape the contentious college admissions process nationwide.
Napolitano’s plan, released Monday in a Board of Regents’ agenda, calls on university officials to create a new University of Californiaspecific entrance exam by 2025 or ditch standardized testing for good. Either way, if regents adopt the recommendation at their May 21 meeting, high school juniors applying to University of California schools would never again need to take the SAT or ACT.
The recommendation follows years of debate surrounding the college admissions process, with pressure building from critics who say standardized tests put lowincome and minority students at an inherent disadvantage.
Nearly 1,200 universities nationwide have made SAT and ACT test scores optional, including a recent wave of schools forced to be flexible by the coronavirus shutdowns, said Robert Schaeffer, interim executive director of FairTest, an antitesting advocacy group.
If adopted, Napolitano’s recommended strate
gy could hearken nationwide change, Schaeffer said.
“The University of California is the most prestigious public university system in the country — it will serve as a model for schools both public and private across the U.S.,” Schaeffer said. “Everybody’s been watching California and waiting to see what the regents will do.”
In Napolitano’s plan, students entering in the fall of 2021 or 2022 would have the option of submitting test scores for admissions, but those who choose not to submit scores would not be penalized.
The testing requirement for current high school juniors had already been waived due to COVID19. Both ACT and the College Board, which administers the SAT, have canceled spring exams, with plans to resume tests this summer and fall.
In 2023 and 2024, University of California schools would become “test blind,” meaning test scores would not be used for admissions decisions, although students could submit them for scholarship or courseplacement purposes.
Finally, in 2025, officials would implement the new test “that better aligns with the content UC expects applicants to have learned and with UC’s values.” However, if no such test is yet available, the universities would “eliminate altogether” the use of standardized testing in freshman admissions, Napolitano recommended.
In February, a report from the Academic Senate’s Standardized Testing Task Force recommended keeping current admission test requirements in place until the UC system developed its own test — a process the committee said could take nine years.
Napolitano’s plan differs not only because it would eliminate the testing requirement before a new test is developed, but it would cut the time frame for creating that test nearly in half. The tightened timeline is necessary in light of COVID19 challenges, the recommendation said.
“The unprecedented nature of the COVID19 pandemic and the need for the University to respond quickly and decisively has resulted in an unanticipated shift in policy,” the president wrote. “Suspending the standardized testing requirement acknowledges new realities that were not present” earlier this year.
The admissions process at competitive schools also came under scrutiny amid the cheating scandal that rocked elite colleges nationwide, including UCLA and UC Berkeley. One parent shelled out $100,000 for someone to ace the SAT for his UC Berkeleybound son in a rare, yet telling case of how wealth can rig the testing system.
Schaeffer said he thinks Napolitano’s approach is smart in part because it strikes a compromise that allows both sides to “prove their arguments.”
Universities that have already opted for optional test scores in the admissions process get a more diverse class of applicants representing a broader range of socioeconomic backgrounds, first languages, ability levels and race and ethnicity, Schaeffer said.
“Eliminating that hurdle will help kids from historically excluded groups have a better chance at being admitted to one of the UC schools,” he said.
Meanwhile, ACT CEO Marten Roorda said in a January letter to the UC regents that the test is a “trusted, accurate and fair” tool, and becoming “testoptional” could have unintended consequences that would strain the system with new problems.
“Decades of research have shown that the combination of high school grades and standardized test scores is the single best predictor of firstyear college success,” he wrote.