I tend to agree. At the most competitive high schools the first cut for UCLA and UCB seems to be ELC. And achieving ELC at these schools requires plenty of AP courses along with some Honors courses in some cases i.e. very high rigor.
My kids school was mandatory test (you have to explicitly opt out) so the vast majority of kids have scores. The counselors put in the data for Maia so it is up to date. A quick review of the scattergrams shows that admissions to UCLA and UCB is actually pretty predictable at her school.
Below a 4.4W the success rate is 8% or so.
1500 SAT of below is about the same
over a 4.4W GPA and a 1510 or greater SAT and the rate goes to about 70% at UCB and 55% or so at UCLA
For our school they are admitting the right kids. If you have just a high GPA (ELC) you have a shot that is likely in line with the schools average admit rate. If you are peak GPA and SAT your chances are very good.
However, accessibility of IB, AP, etc. tests, or course work to prepare for such tests, is highly variable. Consider a small high school in a remote area which struggles to offer just the basic college prep curriculum and does not have enough advanced students to be able to spare teachers for AP or other advanced courses that prepare for external standardized tests on advanced material. The discontinuation of SAT subject tests means that external standardized testing on regular level college prep material is no longer available.
The UCs are test blind though, for SAT/ACT. Maybe I misunderstand what you are trying to say, something like a correlation between high weighted GPA and high SAT?
I am just pointing out that they do manage to identify and admit the “best” students. For our school at least the idea that “requiring testing” would weed out many who don’t really belong (those nasty undeserving “TO kids”) is a false argument. They already are admitting the kids with high test scores at a much higher rate than kids with similar grades and lesser test scores.
Our school also requires any student who takes an AP course to take the test which means that a bunch of high AP test scores are a very good method of confirming preparation.
Or even high performing schools, such as my D’s high school, which offers only around 15 AP courses and limits students to taking AP courses junior and senior years, with a max of three APs per year and a recommended number of 2 per year - meaning even top students may only have 6 AP courses on their transcripts. And even that is highly variable. I think my D had 4 AP classes in high school? And she didn’t take any of the AP tests - too expensive and stressful - so she opted out. This is not unusual at all for her school, which does actually have a high acceptance rate to the UCs nonetheless.
I wasn’t sure if this deserved it’s own thread or not, but it looks like Boston University has announced that if you submit the ACT, they will require submission of the science subscore even though the ACT made that optional. Here’s the text from the email D26 received about it:
With the school year coming to a close in just a few short weeks, I hope you’ve enjoyed your junior year of high school.
I am writing to share an important update to Boston University Admissions’ Standardized Test Policies and Practices. As you may know, BU announced last December that we would remain test optional for students applying for admission through fall 2028 and spring 2029. Recently, the ACT announced that students would have the option to opt out of the Science subsection. After much consideration, BU has decided that any student who wishes to submit an ACT score with their application for admission will be required to include the Science subsection. The Writing subsection remains optional.
This change will go into effect immediately and be required for all students applying for admission to BU for fall 2026.
Why do you think the science section specifically (vs. science section if applying for STEM, Writing subsection if applying for Humanities/Social science?)
I have no idea! I couldn’t tell you what insight their divining from the science section. But it does seem like the science section is more about data interpretation which is probably a good skill for students to have. But so is writing…
My random guess based on nothing: maybe they want to be able to compare apples to apples when it comes to using past data for composite ACT, at least for this coming admission season.
If the UC’s brought testing back in, I expect a lot of public schools would offer the tests just like they did before covid.
However, I doubt it will happen. I think there would actually be a huge outcry if it was attempted by many who believe requiring tests will only cause less people to apply that the UCs wish to attract.
You mentioned this in another thread where you pointed out that these kids also had 1500+ SATs to which another poster pointed out that SAT’s are not considered. If they couldn’t consider SAT scores, then how do you know that the reason these students were selected were because of their AP exam scores? Maybe these students who had high test scores also took the most rigorous courses and had the best GPA’s and that is why they were accepted rather than their AP scores? Not saying that the UCs don’t consider AP scores at all but I don’t imagine they place much emphasis on them because of the inequality that occurs by doing so since some can not afford these tests and certain schools in CA don’t offer any AP courses or offer them but few students take the test. Also the UCs never factored in SAT test scores nearly as much as other schools before they went test blind so given their track record on deemphasis of test scores, I don’t see why AP scores would be high on their radar but who knows?
Interesting but isn’t emphasis on AP test scores even more unequal than SAT tests? Lots of kids don’t have access to AP classes at all, especially those attending schools where the rate of FGLI is high. Also these tests are even more expensive than the SAT and given that there are more often more tests to proctor, the resources for schools providing AP exams outweighs the amount of resources that offering the SAT exam would take. One might say that it’s all about local context - that the UC’s can not expect students to take AP exams if a school does not offer the course but then the same contextual argument could be made for the SAT since that test score could at least provide context of a student’s SAT score in comparison to their peers in the same school, especially if there are lots of students with the same 4.0 GPA.
My understanding is that the UC’s have been moving away from emphasis on AP courses and focusing more on dual enrollment coursework. Not all students of course have access to dual enrollment but there has been a push for more schools to offer these courses. Seems like the most equitable solution.
As I said before, UC admissions is very school specific. They don’t evaluate kids outside of their contexts and their contexts are their schools. So if you come from a school with a ton of APs and a bunch of kids scoring fives on most exams and taking DE, you are being evaluated against those kids. Our school is like that. However we have significant grade inflation. It’s not uncommon to have most of the class making an A in the class and only a handful of kids scoring fives. In our school kids who made into top UCs all had very high AP scores.
If you come from a disadvantaged school with few APs and few kids taking them, you are going to be evaluated against that context, so somebody else’s experience in high performing school isn’t as relevant. I think this is the reason why so many kids with amazing stats often don’t get into top UCs from very competitive districts. What seems to matter is that you climbed to the top of your school.
Dual enrollment quality varies wildly across the state. I think if you are in larger metropolitan areas in CA, the quality is excellent. But in some areas, like ours, it’s a disaster. I like the standardized nature of APs. I could tell you horror stories about my son’s DE physics class locally. I don’t know what we would have done if not for free MIT online videos and AP self study questions. UCLA forced my kid into upper division physics because he had DE credit for lower division. He would have absolutely failed if not all the self study he did outside of his DE class.
So I am not always sold on DE. It could be great or not.
Even if the UC’s are looking at AP scores in a school specific manner there can be students in the SAME school that can afford taking AP tests and some that can’t. Thus seems rather odd for the UC’s to believe that SAT tests which also can be used in a school context would be an issue in inequality when AP scores are even more of a problem in that regard which is why if UC’s never placed much emphasis on SAT scores, it seems logical that they don’t place much emphasis on AP scores, especially since the knowledge gained can be rather dependent on the teacher while at least with SATs it’s general knowledge across a student’s basic education. As for your school, even if all the students had high AP scores, they also as you said had high SAT scores but the UC’s didn’t look at their SAT scores so you actually don’t know if their AP scores had much weight. It’s possible they stood out from the others because they took more rigorous courses or had much better ec’s ie. national or state award winners, multiple honors etc. These things are all correlated so while they may have had high AP scores, they are unlikely to only have high AP scores that make them stand out. There are many students on the chance me thread who leave out their AP scores and go test optional but often one can guesstimate where they might end up.
You also mentioned that you don’t know what SAT scores would add to the equation since UC’s are using AP scores but how then will they be able to evaluate students in a local context for those that don’t have access to AP scores if there isn’t an SAT score and there is grade inflation like at the school you’re familiar with? As for dual enrollment being spotty true but many complain about bad AP course teachers so it’s not really an argument against DE. A school counselor at a CA private school I am familiar with mentioned that they have moved away from AP courses because there is no preference for them at the UC’s but again I don’t know if that counselor was saying this as a way to appease the school body for why some of their AP offerings have been removed. While it might not matter if there are fewer APs since the students are evaluated in a local context, there definitely is grade inflation at that same school.
Of course there is often the correlation between high SAT scores and high AP scores and good grades and good extracurriculars. Not always, but often. All I can say is at our school the correlation between stellar SAT scores and UCLA/UCB admission is there.
Getting rid of SAT at UCs was due to politics and not admissions preference. In fact faculty wanted to keep the test, but given the political climate around tests and a lawsuit, they decided to dump SAT. Admissions still has to pick the academically strongest students so they use what they have. What makes APs attractive is score standardization. You might not have the best teacher, but AP prep produced by college board ensures you can study and prepare for exams if give effort. Also it makes it easier to compare two kids in the same class and the same grade.
I know UCs like DE. I suspect they like it because it helps them manage the demand for lower division classes. If you have already taken things at community college, you aren’t allowed to repeat them, so it creates a spot for another kid. All my kids have done some DE, but quality just hasn’t been there locally. I know if we were in San Jose or LA, we would have had different experiences.
I think it’s admirable that everybody wants to level the playing field for kids, but it’s impossible. Kids born in wealth are always going to have an advantage - access to better schools, often educated parents, and extracurriculars, and now $5k plus research projects. In fact for a bright kid, overcoming SAT is probably the easiest of those barriers.
I expect it’s mixed with some faculty wanting the SAT dumped and testing in general to be nullified while others want to carry on with testing. For instance, lots of grad programs also seem to be doing away with the general and even subject GREs. That’s why I am skeptical that they are suddenly zeroing in on AP scores when in general the California state system seems to be moving away from testing.
There are definitely faculty on the other side wanting tests of some sort. I expect certain majors are more likely to feel tests are important to identify students that have the preparation needed to enter some programs such as an AP Calc score or the math score on the SAT test for engineering students. I don’t know what these tests would provide for a student planning to major in theater except to make sure they will be able to meet the gen ed requirements though that can be probably be assessed from the student’s high school GPA.
By the way, I agree with you regarding DE programs as being hit and miss and I do think AP courses are more standardized regarding what is expected on an exam and at least there is a test for which one can get exam prep on Khan Academy along with books that can be accessed at the local library. However, the same is true for SAT scores so I don’t see why UCs would consider AP scores but are test blind for the SAT. I think testing requirements should actually be more flexible not less so that kids can prove their abilities by whatever they may have at their disposal. I also think that testing requirements shouldn’t necessarily be a one size fits all policy. If you’re a theater kid, your test is likely your audition that most people won’t have to do. If you’re an engineering prospect maybe you have to do the SAT math section or take certain AP exams while the theater kid won’t.
I also agree with this which is why I think if the UCs are going to consider AP scores then they really also should also allow the consideration of SAT test scores since some kids don’t have access to AP scores yet if they took the SAT they could prove they do stand out in their school from the standard that is set, even if there is grade inflation. Note, I don’t think it needs be one or the other ie. SAT or AP scores but rather allowing for flexibility with testing.