@bluebayou . . . Then they will have moved up one notch; that’s better than nothing. One of the complaints, of course, the anti-SAT/ACT crowd has had is that the tests are too general, so the subject specificity of SATIIs should seemingly appease them.
Obviously, they can’t make AP tests mandatory because some high schools don’t have the funding to have a decent amount of AP courses, but that’s why I think that the college-prep students who go to underfunded high schools should dual-enroll at their local community college, provided that these students have the aptitude to take lower-level college courses like calculus. And even if they don’t do so well, that’s okay because they will have gotten a more rigorous education, and they can continue on at community college and transfer in later.
And I still think that UC’s finding of gpa being first in importance towards “college success” is a bit fallacious because it’s a UC study, and they’re just trying to reinforce their prejudices that gpa is the most important marker to success in college. I agree that it ultimately is, but there are various things that need to be added concomitant to grades. I think this is borne out at UC because just about everyone at its campuses has excellent grades, yet there are some UCs – the newer campuses particularly – that lag in graduation statistics, which doesn’t necessarily point to “success.” And even at UCLA and UCB, there are a good 5%+ beyond those who don’t make it year two that that never fall off the map, even if time to degree were to be extended out to 10 years.
So without the SAT and ACT, both campuses will have a longer time-to-degree marker, unless they include the quality of high school in admissions, which works against their desires for diversity. Again, UCLA has raised its four-year to 81.6% (?) and UCB’s is ~ 78% (as it’s a bit more STEM than UCLA). Lowering graduation at the two and the others would be working against UC’s mission.