UC panel says scrap SAT I
Faculty committee recommends new type of test
Wednesday, January 30, 2002
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A key University of California faculty committee will release a report today tentatively recommending that the system scrap the SAT I and develop a standardized test more closely aligned with what students are learning in high school.
The proposal will be forwarded to faculty committees on each campus for extensive review. It will then return to the system's Academic Council before being passed on to the Board of Regents for final consideration, probably in July.
"The faculty feels that a change is in order -- that the SAT I, which has been considered a basic aptitude test, is not the best measure," said Chand Viswanathan, chair of the UC faculty Academic Council. "We need to determine admissions more on the basis of achievement."
Even a preliminary stamp of approval by UC's Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS), which is one of the council's committees, is a big step in a process that was started a year ago. Last February, UC President Richard Atkinson shook up the higher education community by announcing at a meeting of university and college presidents in Washington, D.C., that he would seek to eliminate the SAT I basic aptitude test from consideration in UC admissions.
He said that teachers were focusing too much on the test and that it might favor privileged students and put members of minority groups at a disadvantage.
He wants a test closely aligned with California's state standards for K-12 education.
"(Students) will know exactly what it takes to do well on the standardized tests for admission," said UC spokesman Michael Reese. "They will know that what they are studying in high school will be on the test. The message is, do well in high school, and you will do well in admissions."
But some critics say that students applying to other selective universities and colleges will have to take the SAT anyway. They fear dropping the test will result in a drop in standards -- and that the proposal is just another way to try to get around a ban on racial preferences in admissions.
"This is another piece of the effort to make academic qualifications and measures count less compared to more subjective factors," said UCLA Professor Matthew Malkan, a board member of the conservative California Association of Scholars. "Students will still have to take it. What will we have actually gained by all this? Very little."
BOARS is recommending to the faculty that UC work with the nation's top two test producers, the College Board and the ACT, to develop a new test, Reese said.
ACT officials would not comment yesterday, but College Board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti said it would work with UC.
However, she said, there is no indication that other universities and colleges will follow UC's lead.
"Most of our member institutions of higher education really like the SAT I, " Coletti said.
The SAT is mandatory at most top-ranked colleges and universities and is usually one of the most important factors in deciding admissions. Although about 300 institutions have dropped the requirement, they are mostly small, private colleges.
While UC now gives students the option of taking the SAT I math and verbal basic aptitude exams or the ACT achievement test -- in addition to three SAT II subject achievement tests -- few students take the ACT since they are already taking the SAT I for colleges. If the SAT I is thrown out, UC may replace it with two additional SAT II subject exams as an interim solution.
UC research has found the SAT IIs to be the best predictor of student performance, but some critics say they unfairly favor minority students who can choose to take a foreign language test for their third exam even if they grew up speaking the language.
Malkan said that many of Atkinson's arguments for doing away with the SAT I would still apply to a new test.
E-mail Tanya Schevitz at tschevitz@sfchronicle.com.
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