Proposal looks beyond SAT I

  Richard Atkinson Atkinson is president
of the University of California..

It’s the beginning of a new academic year, and like all
new beginnings, this is a time of excitement, energy and high
expectations.

For those of you who are new to UCLA and the University of
California system, let me say congratulations and welcome. I wish
you a successful and rewarding year, and I look forward to your
contributions to the UCLA community.

One of the issues you most likely will be hearing about over the
course of this year concerns the University of California
admissions process.

Thanks to the national debate that has followed a speech I gave
in February, many people know that I have suggested that the UC
reconsider its use of the SAT I in undergraduate admissions.

Many may not know, however, that this proposal is part of a
package of admissions initiatives that are linked in important
ways.

Various commentators have ascribed various motives to these
initiatives. My own goal for these initiatives, though, is fairly
simple: to create an admissions process that is fair to all
students, that expands educational opportunity, that continues to
reward academic achievement and that considers this achievement in
the context of the opportunities available to the student.

Students applying to UC bring a wide variety of backgrounds and
experiences with them.

Our applicants come from many different kinds of communities
““ poor and affluent; rural, urban and suburban; close to and
far away from major universities.

Their schools vary widely in terms of the quality of teaching,
opportunities to take Advanced Placement courses, and even the
availability of basic textbooks and access to computers.

Students are more than the sum of their grades and test
scores.

And they come from families with widely varying levels of
familiarity with higher education and the college admissions
process.

It is important, as a result, that we not use too narrow a
definition of “merit” or “talent” in our
admissions process. The process must recognize that these two
things are possible to achieve in many ways, that not all these
ways are easily quantifiable, and that a student’s
achievements are most fairly evaluated as a total package.

Students are more than the sum of their grades and test scores.
Grades and test scores are important, but they must be viewed in
relation to the opportunities students enjoyed and the challenges
they faced.

By looking at students in this way we can learn more about
motivation, determination, curiosity and other qualities that lead
to success in college and beyond.

The university is in the process of considering or implementing
several initiatives that lead in the direction I have just
suggested. They include:

“¢bull;Eligibility in the Local Context ““ The ELC program,
implemented for the first time this year, grants UC eligibility to
the top 4 percent of each graduating class in California high
schools, based on grades in UC-required courses.

The faculty recommended and the UC Board of Regents adopted the
program to ensure that high-performing students, including those
from rural and urban schools, have access to UC regardless of the
level of educational enrichment available in their schools.

The program supplements and does not replace the
university’s traditional statewide eligibility
requirements.

“¢bull;Dual Admissions ““ Under this proposal adopted by
the faculty and the regents this summer, the top 4 percent to 12.5
percent of students in each high school will be granted admission
to UC, provided they first successfully complete a transfer program
at a community college.

Like ELC, this program will send a clear message to students who
have excelled in disadvantaged schools that they have a clear and
affordable route to a UC degree.

“¢bull;Comprehensive review ““ The faculty is considering
an additional proposal of mine to evaluate applicants to the
university’s campuses in a comprehensive way, rather than
admitting a specified proportion on the basis of limited
“academic” criteria alone.

I believe that evaluating applicants as fully as possible is the
best model for the UC ““ and one that is successfully used by
many of the nation’s selective private institutions as
well.

“¢bull;Standardized tests ““ I also have proposed to the
Academic Senate that UC no longer require the SAT I for freshman
admission. The test would be replaced with subject-based
achievement tests, such as the SAT II, that better measure what
students have learned in school.

Such a change would bolster educational standards in California
by drawing a clear link between what is taught in high school and
what students are evaluated on for college entrance. And it would
send a message that it’s more important for students to
master what’s being taught in the classroom, not what’s
covered in a test-prep course.

In all of these initiatives, academic achievement will still
come first; no one should conclude that our high standards are
somehow being relaxed.

But by defining merit more broadly than we historically have
before, we just may find talent in more places ““ something
that will enrich not only the students we enroll, but the
university and the state of California as a whole.

There are many differing viewpoints on these issues, and I
welcome the conversation that has been generated about them.

In the end, I’m confident that we as a university
community will choose a path that fulfills our obligations to the
next generation of California students.