Atkinson proposes dropping SAT I in admissions

By Bimal Rajkomar
Daily Bruin Reporter

UC President Richard Atkinson recommended Sunday to drop the SAT
I as an admission requirement to the University of California
system.

Atkinson, who still supports standardized testing, said he
considers it to be an unfair measure of achievement.

“This proposal is about fairness in educational decision
making,” Atkinson said in a speech Sunday to the American
Council of Education annual meeting in Washington D.C.

“Applicants for higher education should be assessed on the
basis of their achievements in high school, in the context of the
opportunities available to them.”

UC, one of the nation’s largest users of the SAT tests,
currently uses both the SAT I and SAT II in freshman admissions,
but Atkinson’s plan only applies to SAT I.

The proposal first must be reviewed by the Academic Senate, the
representative body of the faculty, and ultimately by the UC Board
of Regents. If approved the proposal could affect the freshman
class of 2003.

“To drop the SAT would be like deciding you’re going
to drop grades,” Gaston Caperton, president of the nonprofit
College Board which owns the SAT, said to the Associated Press.

He defended the SAT as being “extremely fair.”

“What is not fair is the education system in American
which gives children unequal opportunities,” he
continued.

But Student Regent Justin Fong, who urges that a more holistic
approach be taken by admission committees, disagreed.

“The SATs were never neutral, they were never an objective
test,” he said. “In fact, a lot of research shows they
are biased against minorities in low-income communities.”

Since the passage of SP-1 and Proposition 209, which banned the
use of affirmative action in admissions and throughout the state,
respectively, the number of African American and Latino students
admitted to top UC schools has declined.

Atkinson’s proposal is part of a series of steps aimed to
increase the accessibility of the university to students from
different backgrounds.

With one of the other proposals, the university will begin to
admit high schoolers who graduate within the top 4 percent of their
graduating class, regardless of test scores, this fall.

In another proposal still under review, students in the top 4 –
12.5 percent of their class would be automatically admitted to a UC
school provided they complete a two years at a community
college.

Even with these types of programs, others advocate re-evaluating
admissions at each campus.

“I think we’ve definitely been looking at other
kinds of admissions processes,” Fong said. “I’m
not sure if the regents are really aware of how admissions are done
on all our campuses. We have nine campuses with nine different ways
of admitting students.”

UC Student Association Chair Debbie Davis, who, like Fong, wants
to make the process more equitable, sees this as a controversial
move, but a step in the right direction.

“California will act first, and everyone will wait to see
what happens to make their decisions,” she said.

“Whether or not this can be actually changed depends a lot
on what the faculty says to the regents and how the regents
themselves perceive it as affecting quality,” said Sue
Johnson, the regents chairman on Friday.

The recommendation is not completely unexpected, as Atkinson has
made his feelings about the SAT open in earlier meetings.

“I’d be very happy to do away with the SAT
test,” Atkinson said at a January 2000 regents meeting.

The 1999-2000 student regent, Michelle Panor, told the Daily
Bruin then that she expected to hear plans to eliminate the SAT as
early as March. 2000.

If the plan is approved, the university would join schools that
have already abandoned the SAT in admissions, like Mount Holyoke
College in Massachusetts.

With reports from Daily Bruin wire services and Timothy Kudo,
Daily Bruin Senior Staff.