Use of SAT Tests May Not Pass With UC Regents

Just when you thought the regents of the University of California had exhausted every hot button issue, they are itching to bring back one of the most contentious: whether to reduce the influence of the SAT, or even throw it out altogether.

The debate over the fairness of SATs has been roiling for years. But just consider how it will come to a full boil if the regents weigh in, given their role as the gatekeepers for the nation’s most prestigious public university.

“We spent two years debating the ban on affirmative action,” Regent Tom Sayles told his colleagues last week. “This is at least as important as that. We ought to get into it, until we get it right.”

The renewed interest was sparked by a faculty committee’s ongoing tinkering with rules on who should be eligible for admission as freshmen. It is the same group that brought forward the plan--embraced last week by the governor and the regents--to guarantee seats for students in the top 4% of their high school class.

The faculty wants to alter something called the “eligibility index,” which draws upon a mixture of grades and SAT scores to set minimum standards for all those seeking to be among the 46,000 freshmen at the eight other UC undergraduate campuses.

Until now, the index has been quite simple. If a student has a high school grade point average of at least a 3.3, then it doesn’t matter if the student bombs the SAT.

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But if the high schooler’s GPA is a bit lower, then the student must achieve a minimum SAT score set by the index. For instance, if the student has a 3.29 GPA, he must have a combined math and verbal score of at least 570. If a student has a 2.82 GPA, the lowest UC will accept, then that student must get a perfect combined score of 1,600.

Now, the faculty wants to reconfigure the index and set minimum standardized test scores for all students, no matter how high their GPAs. In addition, the faculty proposes diminishing the importance of the SAT with a new index formula that gives the SAT II “achievement tests” three times the weight of the SAT.

Some educators believe that the SAT II exams are better measures of what students have learned in high school than the SAT, which was designed to measure a student’s aptitude for college.

Most colleges rely on the SAT as a common measure to compare students from different high schools, and thus provide a check against grade inflation.

Keep in mind that all this tinkering will influence who will be “eligible” for admission to one of the eight undergraduate UC campuses. These minimum qualifications have nothing to do with the fierce academic competition to get into UC Berkeley, UCLA and other selective campuses.

That is to say that the students who barely squeak by the eligibility standard will probably get an offer from UC Riverside, but not one from UC San Diego, which just reported that next fall’s freshman class has an average weighted GPA of 4.05 and SAT scores of 1,303.

Some regents want to do more than tinker. They are talking about joining 300 other colleges and universities that have quit using the SAT to determine who gets admitted.

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“I have done some reading on SAT scores and the more I read, the less they seem reliable in determining how well someone will perform at the university,” Sayles said. “Major companies have undertaken major reengineering of how they do things. We have to think boldly.”

Eighteen months ago, the Latino Eligibility Task Force recommended dropping the SAT to boost the number of Latino students. That seemed to have fizzled until now. Even UC President Richard C. Atkinson is open to the idea of dropping the SAT.

“There’s nothing magical about these tests, except that they are standardized so you can compare students from one high school against another,” Atkinson said.

He is particularly intrigued by the planned statewide high school exit exam that was approved this week by the Legislature. “I would be prepared to forget the SAT and rely on the high school test, provided it’s a good test,” Atkinson said.

So who will decide the fate of the SAT, the faculty or the regents?

Under the California Constitution, the regents rule supreme. They can delegate matters such as admissions rules to the faculty; however, they also can yank back control any time they choose. That’s what happened when the regents decided to ban affirmative action in 1995.