UC may return to using the SAT and ACT for admission. Here's why that doesn't add up

The University of California Board of Regents is being asked to consider whether to bring back the SAT and ACT for admissions, a heated debate that even New York is embroiled in the Golden State crisis.

Despite strong warnings from our friends on the right coast and the thousands (yes, thousands) of professors who say that incoming students lack the necessary skills, I'm here to present a counter-argument, based on fact, common sense and one key fact that keeps getting sidetracked: California parents pay taxes so their California kids can attend these great schools, even if they can't do advanced math.

UC is not Harvard, and it was never intended to embody that kind of self-aggrandizement disguised as prestige. As a parent of two (hopefully) college-age children, I understand the frustration with both the UC admissions process and the post-pandemic, artificial intelligence that has plagued our K-12 schools.

But best of all, this push to bring back these tests immediately is a duty to do the work of our public universities and the remaining classrooms of children who lost their education during the violence. At worst, it jumps to the wrong anti-diversity and retrograde, anti-inclusion front led by the Trump administration — and pretending we don't see where this caravan is headed.

Here's the common sense: This isn't a problem of cheating students or lazy teachers, although both exist. This is a problem with high schools, and the ongoing effects of this epidemic. Restoring the test doesn't solve it at all.

“Of course, these are structural and inequitable problems,” Michal Kurlaender, the chancellor's leadership professor of education policy at UC Davis, told me.

However, the argument is that we allow “wrong” candidates – those who do not have the academic skills to solve the derivative of f(x) = 3x² + 2x − 5 but are desirable for other, perhaps invalid, reasons that our current admissions prefer.

This narrative was given a rocket-fuel boost when UC math professors issued an open letter calling for the reinstatement of standardized tests to weed out the unprepared students who crowd their classrooms. That letter has now been signed by more than 3,000 UC students.

Shockingly, the book seems to be pushing for a return to standardized tests, in fact, arguing that a growing number of their students are simply too stupid to pass, no matter what the professors do.

“UC has limited resources and can only help so many students, and only when the lack of preparation they need to overcome is accessible,” the letter reads.

These “wrong” candidates are said to be sneaking into the arduous admissions process with inflated grades and AI cheating (never mind their Advanced Placement test scores, which have been ignored in this debate), and what some apparently believe is the management's foolish decision to insist on an admissions process that transcends standards, scores and grades.

The result of the unwelcome presence of these “wrong” confessions in our halls of higher education is that world-class professors are forced to teach the foundations below them, and the diminishing reputation of our top schools – despite the fact that Berkeley was recently ranked the No. 1 public university. 1 in the country (UCLA is No.

Here's the truth I mentioned: When we talk about the wrong people, we're actually talking mostly about race and socioeconomics (including the ever-shrinking middle class).

In California, where the Latino population is over 40% and growing, our universities have continued to strive to serve this population and other “first generation” or underrepresented college applicants. We have significantly increased the number of students admitted to our universities, across all demographics.

It's helpful to know that standardized testing was eliminated by the regents in a controversial 2020 vote, largely based on the idea that it discriminated against this broad group of students — though the data didn't support that.

In fact, a 19-person team that investigated the issue found the opposite: that the tests were useful predictors of college success and were able to pick diamonds in the rough from using mediocre alternatives – when used as one factor among broader admissions criteria.

Wait, what?

So why am I against going back to these tests? Because the part of that report that we ignore is that it also found that the University of California can do better than the SAT or the ACT. Saul Geiser, a UC Berkeley professor and leading expert on the issue, says the task force's report was flawed because it failed to take into account factors including family income and parents' education. He calls the SAT “antithetical” to the work of UCs and says it's “delusional” to think that rolling them back would do anything but hurt diversity.

“Unlike private Ivy League colleges, public universities must strive to serve all sectors of the state and all segments of the population,” he told me. “The SAT, with its strong association with inherited privilege, is a major obstacle to achieving that mission.”

The task force initially proposed that California create its own, separate test by 2025 that would go beyond math and English to measure persistence, resilience and determination that have long been hallmarks of success, in college and in life.

The pandemic and costs have killed that job, but our new era of AI has made it more possible than ever. Li Cai, a UCLA professor who was on the working group and serves as director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, told me that he supports bringing back standardized testing and that the blind decision process is a “failed” test — even though he voted for it six years ago.

But you also support the test designed by the UC system of the UC system – a test that can be free, available to be taken at any time at your school or local library as often as you like, and that provides continuous feedback so that students can better identify their weaknesses and prepare themselves.

“My opinion hasn't changed much,” Cai said. “A public university, as prominent as UC … probably has a responsibility not to allow the private sector to take over in terms of intellectual leadership.”

Further weighing on the real results of returning to the SAT is the fact that not all UC professors agree that it is impossible for students to fail. Björn Birnir is the chair of the Mathematics department at UC Santa Barbara, and is one of only two mathematics chairs in the program who did not sign the open letter.

He told me that Santa Barbara is seeing similar deficiencies in math, especially in non-math subjects, but has found a more effective way to address it that doesn't involve cutting students based on test scores.

If students do not have the basic skills, they are sent to a nearby community college, usually in the summer, to participate. They usually come back, he said, ready for the rigors he expects.

“These problems must be solved, but you don't solve them by restoring the SAT,” said Birnir. “Simply closing the door is not the best solution. We think the best way is to have a way for these students to correct their mistakes.”

Problem solved.

Bringing back the SAT may satisfy frustrated professors and parents, but it's a test that will never face the complex reality of our state universities: We want them to be world-class and a pathway for our underachieving, recovering kids to achieve their dreams, even if it involves summer school.