"Ending the standardized test requirement for admissions at the University of California would deprive students of an objective measure of their skills, among other negative consequences, the head of the ACT test warned UC regents this week.
‘Many underserved students benefit greatly from standardized testing as a counterweight for less-than-stellar grades,’ ACT chief executive Marten Roorda told the regents in a three-page letter sent Tuesday to the regents that sets out his argument for why the vast university of nine undergraduate campuses should continue using the test it’s relied on for decades.
Yet Roorda’s letter was met with skepticism from two of the regents, as UC considers whether to keep the testing requirement or join more than 1,000 universities around the country that have made the standardized tests ACT and SAT optional in admissions decisions — or end their use altogether." …
Perhaps his definition of “underserved” is high SES, since discrepent applicants with higher test scores than expected for their HS GPA tend to be high SES, while discrepent applicants with higher HS GPA than expected for their test scores tend to be low SES.
Well sure, but then those that aren’t ‘tending’ in the correct manner, i.e., smart but screwed up grades, will be missed.
Regardless, I have no doubt that UC will be going test optional in the near future; that writing has been on the wall for awhile. It’s much easier than fixing K12.