University of California to drop SAT and ACT as admission requirements
The University of California will drop the SAT and ACT tests as admission requirements through 2024 and eliminate them for California residents after that, a landmark decision by the prestigious university system.
Critics of the standardized tests have long argued they disadvantage students of color and those from lowincome families because test questions often contain inherent bias that more privileged children are better equipped to answer. Wealthier students are also more likely to have access to expensive prep courses that help boost their scores, which many students can’t afford.
The UC’s governing body, the Board of Regents, voted 23-0 Thursday to approve a proposal by the UC president, Janet Napolitano, that phases the tests out over five years, at which point the UC aims to have developed its own test.
The regents met in a teleconference that lasted several hours Thursday, with expert presentations and lengthy debates that echoed a national conversation about whether the tests discriminate against disadvantaged students or help admissions offices find the most qualified applicants.
“I think this is an incredible step in the right direction,” said the Regents chairman, John Perez.
But the move is at odds with a recommendation from the system’s faculty senate, which voted to keep the standardized tests in place. A task force studying the issue argued that standardized test scores, as an objective metric, could even help disadvantaged students who score well on tests but may not stand out in other areas.
But Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor of K-12 policy at University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, said the decision is unlikely to harm students of color in the aggregate.
“I think it’s very unlikely that this
will have any negative impact to equity. That should be obvious if we’re looking at test scores. Disadvantaged students tend to perform worse,” he said.
Polikoff said the news was “very expected”, adding that more universities have been moving away from using standardized tests scores in admissions in recent years.
“I think the most likely scenario is that this will have very little, if any impact on [diversity]. We’re kidding ourselves if we think this is going to solve the broader equity issues,” he said.
Efforts to improve diversity on UC campuses are complicated by a ban on affirmative action, passed by voters in 1996. Since then, black enrollment on UC campuses barely passed 4%. And while Latinos make up roughly 40% of California’s population, they only represent 22% of students in the system.
With California high school campuses closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, the UC had already made the tests optional for students who want to attend the fall 2021 sessions.
Under the plan approved Thursday, SAT and ACT tests will be optional for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years for all applicants.
Starting in 2023 and continuing the following year, the admissions process will be “test blind” for California residents, meaning SAT and ACT scores won’t be used in admissions decisions but could still be considered for purposes such as course placement and scholarships. Napolitano asked the school’s academic senate to work with the administration on a plan for out-ofstate and international students applying as of fall 2023.
In 2025, the 290,000-student UC system will either replace the SAT and ACT with its own admissions test, or if it’s unable to create its own exam, will eliminate its standardized testing requirement altogether.
Napolitano’s office said in a statement that assessing nonresident students “presents challenges in terms of fairness and practicality”, but the options include extending the new tests for California students to out-of-state applicants or using some other standardized tests.
The decision by the massive UC system could be influential as other colleges nationwide eye similar decisions. UC officials said they would begin working on the new test this summer.