UC makes landmark decision to drop ACT and SAT requirement for admission

[amsunshine]

@nomood

@amsunshine

And then there’s the question of whether those credits are transferable to when you actually go to college.

All of their credits are fully transferrable. My D20 had a zoom meeting with the head of admissions last month which confirmed this.

[amsunshine]

@Camasite

Teacher here who has proctored many many standardized tests over the past two decades (PSAT, SAT, and many various state-mandated tests).

My thoughts?

In most states there are some sort of standardized competency testing at the HS level. In CA it is the California High School Proficiency Examination https://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sp/ in Texas it is the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness https://tea.texas.gov/student-assessment/testing/staar/staar-resources and so forth. These standardized tests are already mandatory in most states and schools already set aside time for them in class. They also cover both ELA and Math just like the SAT and ACT.

A much more sensible college admissions process would be to convert these exams into dual purpose HS competency and college admissions exams. That way students would take them much more seriously (which isn’t always the case) and students could avoid the whole SAT/ACT racket. If, as every state actually says, these HS standardized tests are a measure of “college readiness” then let’s use them for that purpose. If they need to be re-designed to curve higher then that can easily be done. Students will still get a numeric score that will place them in a certain percentile ranking for their school, county, state, etc.

The problem with that, at least in CA, is that the level of testing is so low the results are not meaningful.

[nomood]

@amsunshine Congratulations!

[OneMoreToGo2021]

This decision by the UC Regents (most of whom are political appointees) is counter to the recommendation of the faculty task force recently assigned to study standardized testing in admissions. It is obvious to anyone who looks at the graphs below that SAT/ACT have significant validity (technical term used in psychometrics) in predicting college performance for all ethnic groups.

Look at the graphs in the linked post. This isn’t rocket science.

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2020/05/university-of-california-to-end-use-of.html

[firmament2x]

Perhaps the UC Board of Regents should have left it up to the individual campuses to remove testing requirements.

I think that if they don’t rescind the decision, all the campuses will state something to the effect that, “It is highly recommended that students applying to the following intended majors take and report the SAT I and or ACT on their applications: Engineering (inc. Computer Science), …” Not unlike some of the SATII tests.

For UCLA and UCB, the list may be longer: Life and Physical Sciences, Mathematics if in a different department than Physical, some humanities and even some social sciences.

Edit: In addition, this only appears to apply to California residents. The SAT/ACT is extremely important for International students, because their grades are harder to compute into a standardized American system, so the UC campuses weigh the boards much more. The scores are important for OOS students.

What could happen is these two cohorts will snap up all the great majors because they will have manifested 1,500 scores, and the CA students who don’t report will be left with . . . Sociology. (Sorry, it’s not that bad a major; it just doesn’t have any employment prospects in and of itself.)

[Camasite]

@amsunshine

@Camasite

Teacher here who has proctored many many standardized tests over the past two decades (PSAT, SAT, and many various state-mandated tests).

My thoughts?

In most states there are some sort of standardized competency testing at the HS level. In CA it is the California High School Proficiency Examination https://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sp/ in Texas it is the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness https://tea.texas.gov/student-assessment/testing/staar/staar-resources and so forth. These standardized tests are already mandatory in most states and schools already set aside time for them in class. They also cover both ELA and Math just like the SAT and ACT.

A much more sensible college admissions process would be to convert these exams into dual purpose HS competency and college admissions exams. That way students would take them much more seriously (which isn’t always the case) and students could avoid the whole SAT/ACT racket. If, as every state actually says, these HS standardized tests are a measure of “college readiness” then let’s use them for that purpose. If they need to be re-designed to curve higher then that can easily be done. Students will still get a numeric score that will place them in a certain percentile ranking for their school, county, state, etc.

The problem with that, at least in CA, is that the level of testing is so low the results are not meaningful.

Like I said, they probably have to re-engineer the tests to make it workable. But no reason why they can’t and just give all HS juniors a single math and ELA test to use for both HS graduation and college admissions. As long as there is adequate level of difficulty they can still curve kids from the zero to the 100th percentile just like the SAT and they can still set whatever passing level they want to for HS graduation.

You don’t need to duplicate the SAT. Just provide some sort of way to benchmark the GPA and make sure that students are capable of doing the work in college. Public universities don’t really need to be that selective. UCLA and UC-Berkeley don’t need to duplicate Harvard and Stanford. They have a different mission. Besides, if they took the top 10% of GPAs and the top 10% based on whatever state standardized test it would be basically same as today.

Colleges probably like the SAT because it is national (or international). But there is no reason for public state universities to really need a national test if their primary objective is to educate in-state students. The private schools have a different mission obviously.

[amsunshine]

We’ll just have to agree to disagree. I think a national test is a good thing. The SAT has already been dumbed down enough — the CA test is even dumber and implementing a new curve would not be helpful, imo.

[Twoin18]

@Camasite

Public universities don’t really need to be that selective. UCLA and UC-Berkeley don’t need to duplicate Harvard and Stanford. They have a different mission. Besides, if they took the top 10% of GPAs and the top 10% based on whatever state standardized test it would be basically same as today

I think you misunderstand how academically selective UCB and UCLA actually are. At my kids’ school the smartest kids typically go to UCB and UCLA, basically the top 2% of the class (4.0 GPA/1500+ SAT and strong ECs as well), and selection is much more academically focused than at private schools.

We see that Stanford has a different mission because the kids who go there (2-4 per year) are not top of the class but have other hooks (usually in the form of parents working there, occasionally sports). Similarly, USC still has the “Spoiled Children” reputation as the place for rich kids who are moderately smart but not good enough to make it into UCB/UCLA.

The CA standardized tests as currently written would be mostly useless for distinguishing at this level as it is quite easy to get a perfect score, especially in math, with zero preparation. I find it hard to believe the state is going to agree to make those tests harder just so that they are usable by UCB and UCLA.

[NonTraditional2]

When you lower the bar to help people get in, you lower the output produced for the workforce.

[ucbalumnus]

@drusba

A California question now becomes what are the Cal States going to do with their SAT/ACT test requirement. The loss of the UCs will be a significant financial blow to College Board (also to the ACT, but less so because the SAT is the more prevalent test in California). If this spreads to the Cal States and also to a lot of other universities, the potential exists not just for many colleges not requiring the tests, but for the two testing agencies to be in financial distress and possibly gone or reorganized to shells of their current existence.

https://www2.calstate.edu/csu-system/news/Pages/CSU-to-Suspend-Standardized-Testing-Requirement-for-Upcoming-Admission-Cycles.aspx says that “The California State University (CSU) will temporarily suspend the use of ACT/SAT examinations in determining admission eligibility for all CSU campuses for the 2021-2022 academic year. This temporary change of admission eligibility applies only for the fall 2021, winter 2022 and spring 2022 admission cycles. … However, in no case will standardized test scores be utilized in making admissions decisions for applicants during the 2021-2022 academic year.”

In other words, no consideration of SAT or ACT at all at CSU for fall 2021 through spring 2022 admission cycles. Probably just means ranking by GPA instead of the eligibility index that has been used (GPA * 800 + SATRW + SATM or GPA * 200 + ACT * 10).

[ucbalumnus]

@Twoin18

@Mwfan1921

How are admissions committees making these adjustments (“socioeconomic differences and admit disadvantaged students with lower tests scores”) if they are need-blind? Are they doing it by zip code or HS? And if so, is that really need blind?

As I understand it, …

The general methodology of UC admissions readings is described in https://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/hout_report_2005.pdf .

[ucbalumnus]

@Twoin18

@Camasite

Public universities don’t really need to be that selective. UCLA and UC-Berkeley don’t need to duplicate Harvard and Stanford. They have a different mission. Besides, if they took the top 10% of GPAs and the top 10% based on whatever state standardized test it would be basically same as today

I think you misunderstand how academically selective UCB and UCLA actually are. At my kids’ school the smartest kids typically go to UCB and UCLA, basically the top 2% of the class (4.0 GPA/1500+ SAT and strong ECs as well), and selection is much more academically focused than at private schools.

UCB and UCLA are highly selective compared to other state flagship level universities because they are relatively small compared to the in-state population of college-bound high school graduates. Compare to states like Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming, where most of the college-bound high school graduates going to state universities attend a flagship level university, because the flagship level universities are quite large relative to the in-state population of college-bound high school graduates.

[Data10]

@OneMoreToGo2021

This decision by the UC Regents (most of whom are political appointees) is counter to the recommendation of the faculty task force recently assigned to study standardized testing in admissions. It is obvious to anyone who looks at the graphs below that SAT/ACT have significant validity (technical term used in psychometrics) in predicting college performance for all ethnic groups.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the faculty task force recommendations. The faculty task force report concludes by offering 6 specific consensus recommendations. One of the 6 recommendations is to develop a new standardized assessment system for admission, as quoted below. I doubt that the UC system would have decided to make this admission change, with plans for a new standardized test in admissions, had it not been recommended by the faculty task force report. The future long term plans also do not conflict with the other 5 recommendations from the report.

"**Recommendation 6. Develop a new assessment system that will be continuously accessible to students and that will assess a broader array of student learning and capabilities than any of the currently available tests. **

This new assessment system should provide more detailed feedback to schools and to students, allow students to learn the item types through multiple opportunities to practice, and align programs in Recommendation 4 to be targeted to students’ learning needs. The new assessment may enable UC to admit classes of students more representative of the diversity of the state. A new system should allow the measurement of student progress over time and development of a broader range of skills and attributes relevant to an applicant’s success at UC, reflecting the principle that the University “should select those students who demonstrate a strong likelihood that they will persist to graduation.” In particular, based on the research reviewed, the Task Force believes that UC will be able to articulate a set of skills and attributes that a) can be measured in a uniform and quantitative way, b) are likely to be predictive of success at UC, and c) could potentially show smaller disparities than current measures along the lines of race, ethnicity, and SES. The tests should continue to evaluate math and reading achievement due to their foundational importance in college and career success. …"

[MYOS1634]

Why not use subject tests in the one discipline linked to the major?
Ie., Want to major in math or C’s = math 2; want to major in humanities or social science, test in any of the humanities/social science tests…
+1 other test of the student’s choice.

[bluebayou]

@MYOS1634

Why not use subject tests in the one discipline linked to the major?
Ie., Want to major in math or C’s = math 2; want to major in humanities or social science, test in any of the humanities/social science tests…
+1 other test of the student’s choice.

For the exact same reason that at the existing tests don’t work for the politicos (Regents and Napolitano).

The new assessment may enable UC to admit classes of students more representative of the diversity of the state.

The CA standardized tests as currently written would be mostly useless for distinguishing at this level as it is quite easy to get a perfect score, especially in math, with zero preparation. I find it hard to believe the state is going to agree to make those tests harder just so that they are usable by UCB and UCLA.

Agree with this. No way CA will adjust the high school proficiency exam. Kids start taking it Frosh year, and many suburban schools have a ~90% pass rate. OTOH, urban schools do not, so they can retake the next year and the next. Making it more difficult for a curve is not an political option, and from a practical matter no way to separate the top decile scores (for Cal and UCLA admissions).

fwiw: I predicted UC dropping SAT/ACT on cc awhile ago and got a bunch of blowback. The writing was on the wall. Dropping the entrance requirement is much simpler than trying to fix K12.

[OneMoreToGo2021]

No test can be devised that will not produce the same gaps between races and SES levels.

At this point, quotas would be a better solution in my opinion, and frankly less damaging to the integrity of the admissions system.

[lkg4answers]

@bluebayou

Agree with this. No way CA will adjust the high school proficiency exam. Kids start taking it Frosh year, and many suburban schools have a ~90% pass rate.

Which CA high school proficiency exam do kids start taking their freshman year?

[bluebayou]

@OneMoreToGo2021

No test can be devised that will not produce the same gaps between races and SES levels.
…

Which is why there will be no new test. Ain’t gonna happen. They will ‘try’ to develop one, and fail. The SAT/ACT is done for UC.

Which CA high school proficiency exam do kids start taking their freshman year?

My bad. I remember my kids taking it spring of Frosh year. Either the state changed it to now 16+Soph year, or my brain cells are getting sketchy. (prolly the latter?)

[bluebayou]

btw: even the current, approved high school state tests have a significant disparity between ORMs and URMs.

For perspective, Santa Ana Unified is 90+% Latino, and a similar % on free lunch program, i.e., low income. Irvine Unified is one of the top districts in the state.

https://laist.com/2019/10/09/sbac_results_2019_california_public_schools_standardized_tests.php

[amsunshine]

@Data10

@OneMoreToGo2021

This decision by the UC Regents (most of whom are political appointees) is counter to the recommendation of the faculty task force recently assigned to study standardized testing in admissions. It is obvious to anyone who looks at the graphs below that SAT/ACT have significant validity (technical term used in psychometrics) in predicting college performance for all ethnic groups.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the faculty task force recommendations. The faculty task force report concludes by offering 6 specific consensus recommendations. One of the 6 recommendations is to develop a new standardized assessment system for admission, as quoted below. I doubt that the UC system would have decided to make this admission change, with plans for a new standardized test in admissions, had it not been recommended by the faculty task force report. The future long term plans also do not conflict with the other 5 recommendations from the report.

"**Recommendation 6. Develop a new assessment system that will be continuously accessible to students and that will assess a broader array of student learning and capabilities than any of the currently available tests. **

This new assessment system should provide more detailed feedback to schools and to students, allow students to learn the item types through multiple opportunities to practice, and align programs in Recommendation 4 to be targeted to students’ learning needs. The new assessment may enable UC to admit classes of students more representative of the diversity of the state. A new system should allow the measurement of student progress over time and development of a broader range of skills and attributes relevant to an applicant’s success at UC, reflecting the principle that the University “should select those students who demonstrate a strong likelihood that they will persist to graduation.” In particular, based on the research reviewed, the Task Force believes that UC will be able to articulate a set of skills and attributes that a) can be measured in a uniform and quantitative way, b) are likely to be predictive of success at UC, and c) could potentially show smaller disparities than current measures along the lines of race, ethnicity, and SES. The tests should continue to evaluate math and reading achievement due to their foundational importance in college and career success. …"

Sure, the faculty task force made this recommendation about developing a new assessment but at the same time they did not support having the UCs adopt a test optional policy with respect to the SAT and the ACT. I actually found the task force’s recommendation about developing a new test interesting. They mentioned modeling after one or more existing assessments, including the PISA. Americans traditionally do relatively poorly on the PISA, especially in math.