Grades in high school and course rigor.
Students spend 180 days a year, 6-7 hours a day, for 3.5 years, being evaluated continuously, reflect in grades they earn.
Course rigor reflects how a student was challenged in earning those grades. I suspect most Berkeley students have 5+ AP courses completed before Senior year.
An SAT is a <4 hour test taken once, testing math through Algebra/some pre-Calc and grammar/reading at ~10-11th grade level.
A recommendation is the view of two of probably 20+ teachers, which the student selected to write a recommendation because they will write a positive recommendation.
Standardized testing provides an additional data point, but it’s not such a tremendously influential component such that omitting it will invalidate the admissions process, IMHO.