By Michael Burke – EdSource – The University of California will no longer accept SAT or ACT scores for admissions decisions, even on an optional basis.
The University of California will no longer consider SAT or ACT scores in admission or scholarship decisions under a settlement reached Friday with students.
The university’s Board of Regents committed last year to stop requiring the exams in admissions, but Friday’s settlement puts to rest questions about whether the system would use the tests at all in scholarship or admissions decisions at any point in the future, even on an optional basis.
The settlement marks the end of a lawsuit that was filed in 2019 by students, community organizers and the Compton Unified School District. The settlement was praised by critics who say standardized tests are biased against low-income students, students with disabilities and Black and Latino students.
The historic settlement “marks an end to a sordid chapter in the history of the University of California. The Regents’ stubborn insistence over generations upon usage of the SAT and ACT despite indisputable evidence that these exams only measured family wealth cost hundreds of thousands of talented students of color a fair opportunity to matriculate in their state’s system of higher education,” Mark Rosenbaum, one of the attorneys representing students in the case, said.
UC enrolls more than 226,000 undergraduate students across nine campuses. A tenth UC campus, UC San Francisco, has only graduate programs.
Last May, the UC Board of Regents voted unanimously to abandon the SAT and ACT in admissions and agreed to consider adding a new test by 2025. However, at the time, the university planned to permit its nine undergraduate campuses to give students the option of submitting test scores for fall 2021 and fall 2022 admissions decisions. Six of those nine campuses initially planned to go test-optional.
Those campuses were forced to abandon their plans to give students the option of submitting test scores for fall 2021 admission after a judge ruled in August that the campuses had to stop any consideration of SAT or ACT scores while the lawsuit was ongoing.
The settlement reached Friday prevents any UC campuses from considering scores at all for fall 2022 through at least spring 2025 admissions decisions. According to the settlement, UC still has no plans to consider SAT or ACT scores after 2025.
The settlement also prevents UC from considering SAT or ACT scores when determining whether to award scholarships. Under the Regents’ decision reached last May, the university had planned to consider those test scores for scholarship decisions through fall 2024.
UC can still consider SAT and ACT scores for less consequential purposes, such as course placement.
The university will also pay $1.25 million in legal fees to the attorneys who represented students in the lawsuit, the settlement says.
This year, UC saw a surge in applications for freshman admission in fall 2021, receiving 203,700 applications, or about 32,000 more than last year. Experts attributed the spike in applications at least partially to the elimination of the SAT and ACT in admissions decisions.
“The makeup of this year’s applicants already show that students are no longer deterred from applying based on their inability to access standardized testing,” Marci Lerner Miller, another attorney representing students, said in a statement.
It is not clear whether UC will consider any standardized tests for admissions decisions in 2025 and beyond. A university committee earlier this year encouraged UC to explore allowing in-state students to submit their 11th grade Smarter Balanced exams, the annual state standardized tests, for admissions consideration. But it is unclear whether UC will act on that recommendation.
If the UC does add a new standardized test for undergraduate admissions at any point in the future, the university must “consider access for students with disabilities in the design and implementation of any such exam,” according to the settlement reached Friday.
Institutionalized mediocrity.
My exact thoughts, DD,…the dumbing down of America at it’s finest!!
I sincerely hope the fine people of our educated community will reconsider. Either that or, when it is time to pick a surgeon for a loved family member, you will remember: You chose mediocrity rather than excellence.
I am thoroughly disgusted.
So what’s the criteria then? First come first serve? I’m kidding, I know what it is. Race based “equity!”
There you go folks. Meritocracy is white supremacy. If you want the best qualified person for the job, you’re a racist. Now get on the bed and get ready to have your chest cracked open for your heart surgery by Cletus. He had a dream, and it would be heartless to deny him his shot at surgeon.
SAT is just another form of IQ test. They aren’t a measure of family wealth, family wealth is a consequence of hereditary intelligence. I know as a society we don’t want to grapple with the obvious and unpleasant truth of The Bell Curve, but we are going to tear the nation apart trying to force reality to conform to our ideals of fairness.
Can anyone on the other side explain to me cogently how SAT/ACT is discriminatory against anyone other than by intelligence? It’s not like I’m a genius, I think I got 1100 on the SAT back in the 90s. I didn’t go to Harvard, and I didn’t deserve to. Why should anyone else that doesn’t have the gift or put in the work?
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What’s next?
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Separate tests for whites, blacks, Asians, etc.?
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Let’s just lower the qualifications bar even further and just admit anyone with a heartbeat.
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This is just another form of reverse racism.
Once again America is caving in to this crap of “people of color” rant!! Commercials on TV and everywhere are depicting bi-racial existence! It is nauseating!
It is totally and very unfair for students that had to pass a SAT and/or ACT in order to even qualify for entry to the preferred higher level institutions. Now all you have to do is cry discriminatory practice and you are in! BS!!!
You are so right, Concord 74 It is getting so out of xontrol and so unfair to all students.who did not get in years ago or had to go to a State School because they did not hit the mark for a UC, but were really smart kids..
We have a world of entitled pansies coming up now and it must be stopped!.
It’s not about skin color, it’s about intelligence and hard work and parental guidance.
“Commercials on TV and everywhere are depicting bi-racial existence! It is nauseating!”
This is blatant and open racism.
13% of the nation’s population getting about 80% of the representation in every TV commercial and new “Sit Com” or Reality Show. Us White Folks should start demanding “Equity” and fair representation!
What a Scam!
Clearly, 50% of the population is gay (in TV world).
Removing objective standards from the admissions process opens the doors for less qualified and lower achieving students to water down the quality of California Universities and the value of a degree from those institutions.
Imagine what will happen when -C students “graduate” from Medical School and “care” for you!
At first blush I thought this was a bad idea, but knowing how sinister the State works, maybe they’re going to let in anybody w/$, no matter how incompetent they are, and then Flunk’em out .. this was, and is a known practice at my Alma mater, after a year, you flush and repeat
You got that right, Chuckie!
Rather than striving to elevate everyone, academia now strives to debase everyone to the lowest common denominator.
That is, and always will be, how equity works.
They can’t make a tree grow taller, but they can cut the tops off the ones that do. As Neil from Rush put it, “now there’s no more oak oppression, for they passed a noble law. And the trees will be kept equal, by hatchet, axe, and saw.”
The UC will have an interesting issue in the future if they are admitting students from schools that give A’s just for showing up, and these students cannot perform at the UC level. Will they dumb down the classes, or endure the poor optics of failing those from disadvantaged communities?
It used to be the case, and probably still is, that the colleges would weigh student GPAs against the high school’s performance on state testing. Thus, a 4.0 GPA at a high-performing school was worth more in terms of admissibility to college than a 4.0 at a lower performing school. That also motivated students to take the state testing seriously.
You already know the answer to that. Equity, baby!
I feel worst for the high achieving black and latino students, because no matter how hard they worked, and how much they excel, people will always wonder if they got where they are by quota.
The ACT and SAT were always something of a scam.
They correlated so highly with GPA, as to be redundant – an extra hurdle and expense that students had to pass to gain admission.
But now the scam is college itself An increasingly Woke curriculum provides political indoctrination but offers little benefit in the work place.
Tuitions have become the leading cause of debt…and debt as it has always been, is the best leverage to keep the poor at a disadvantage.
Kids, there are plenty of good paying jobs that don’t require a degree. Stay out of debt. Stay free.
best part is the best scores were from asians ….china and india
so not sure where this is going but looks like more dimbing down of the educational system to make more dem voter drones
parents you must be proud to pay
to have your kids brainwashed to hate you
for making the money to pay for their schooling lol
anti economics
…pro socialist free money and part owner of nothing
but they wont teach them why its unsustainable
and anti american and anti constitutional freedoms
Must make minorities feel good to know they don’t measure up. Don’t they understand their policy is the worst type of racism. You are too stupid so we are going to give you a break. Hard to believe.
this is both sad and hilarious.
in an agreement reached with students? so the inmates are running the asylum then? just like with our one party rule.
we are in dire straights, we need President Trump back!
Trump University?
Trump would be great but we need to settle for anyone with a good working brain. The left just has S for brains.
Aren’t blacks and Latinos embarrassed?
“The settlement was praised by critics who say standardized tests are biased against low-income students, students with disabilities and Black and Latino students.”
So low income Asians who clearly look “ethnic” seem able to go through life with discipline, ambition and achieve high standards.
So low income, first generation, Europeans are able to go through life with discipline, ambition, and achieve high standards.
So low income blacks and Latinos are not able to go through life with discipline, ambition, and achieve high standards.
And the moral is . . . .
Apparently you CAN fool MANY of the people MOST of the time.
I suspect those new students who scored poorly on the SAT or ACT but manage to get accepted into the UC system are in for a rude awaking academically wise.
No they wont. They’ll just get steered into grievance study courses that have no actual rigorous academic standard where they will learn to use the hammer of all the -isms and -phobias to brow beat people into submission. Then they will all get jobs in human resources or as diversity officers where they will purge companies of independent thinkers and turn those companies into the next institution hollowed out and worn like a skin suit.
Oh, hello Marxism.
Wait, wait, wait… so they got the test eliminated that served as some standardized measure of learning ability regardless of school quality thus allowing people in low quality schools (read: low income) to show an ability relative to peers. So now they will ask schools to discern by… GPA… AP classes… extracurriculars… great job libs… great job. I’m sure that all those california public schools that cut PE, Art, and foreign language didn’t cut any other things that allowed students to set themselves apart. Especially after a year of Covid. This is basically ANOTHER leveling up opportunity for kids going to private school. Slow clap.
The new test in 2025 will consist of questions 1) Are you breathing? and 2) Are you a POC?
Keep lowering the standards and requirements so the CA politicians ranks can be replenished…
Not surprising. MDUSD Elementary schools have been dumbing down the kids. Unless they have GATE, which most do not. The teachers spend all their time trying to get the kids that are below grade level up to grade level, instead of holding them back. (Former principal at Wren Ave. told me the reason they did not hold kids back was because they would end up with a bunch of middle school students with drivers licenses and there would not be anywhere for them to park.) True story!
This makes it so the kids that are at grade level can’t progress. It is 100% bullcrap.
So the thought is standardized tests are biased against low-income students, students with disabilities and Black and Latino students? Do these community organizers actually believe Black and Latino students cannot do well with these tests? Based on the phrasing, do they intimate low-income students are a different group than Black or Latino? Pretty negative outlook.
I am fine with dropping these tests. Does this open a new avenue for eligibility, besides excellent rowing skills, or volleyball skills? As mentioned by a few, this means now eligibility will be based on color or ethnicity (since grades must also be biased against low-income, or Black or Latino).
Fog the mirror test, check. Racial equity test, check. You’re in!
The dumbing-down of America continues on, and is becoming more pervasive.
When will black America wake up and realize that liberal democrat politicians are the most racist people in this nation ? Think about it , They tells us black and latinos are to dumb to get into colleges but they haven’t improved inner city schools for decades. They say Blacks and Latinos are to dumb to show an ID to vote but they can use one for everything else in life . The liberal democrats say you are to dumb to get a vaccine so we will keep wearing masks to protect you .The list goes on and on . Wouldn’t it be great if those politicans spent as much time to bring Black and Latino’s standard of living up as they do trying to bring everyone elses down? They aren’t helping you they are using you .
Well articulated, Pepe!
The tests may not be perfect, but they are a good indicator of ability. This will certainly diminish the value of a UC degree. This will drive the brightest to private universities that still use the tests, further diminishing the value of a UC degree.
I wonder of they will also eliminate tests for grad school, such as the GRE, GMAT and LSAT?
This is a great way for them to allow international students who pay way more in tuition, than in-state students, to get higher enrollment priority. It’s always about money. They can 3x their money this way. Those applicant fees aren’t cheap either. The big problem here, those international students go home when they finish their degree programs. I guess we’ll have health care worker and STEM professional shortages because of this decision.
I can’t wait to see what the graduation rates will be. I also can’t wait to see what kind of BS excuses people come up with for lower graduation rates for the favored minorities (read: other than Asian.)
If someone wants a degree bad enough they will do what ever it takes to acheive it, they will make it easier just by giving a pass or fail instead of true grade, TP will have more worth then the degree from a CA University
The SAT isn’t the be-all, end-all, but it is a useful counter to favoritism and bias. And it is a genuine aid to students from non-fancy high schools who are talented and motivated. I guess working class Asian kids don’t matter when it comes to diversity!
It’s the woke-privileged types, almost entirely white, who want to abolish meritocracy. Hard working minority kids know that it is one of the few things that helps them succeed without a silver spoon or connections.
I think the value of my degree from CAL just depreciated.
The only people benefitting from these tests are the testing company monopoly. If enough universities follow suit, maybe this company will go out of business.
If I recall correctly, the fees for the SAT and ACT were waived for low-income students years ago. Why is this now a problem? How about all the low-income Asian and Caucasian students who did well? Are they being punished now?