System based on testing is inherently rife with prejudice

Tan currently serves as the USAC academic affairs
commissioner.

By Bryant Tan

Our whole admissions system finds its foundation in standardized
tests ““ whether it be the SAT I, SAT II or ACT. Critical
decisions, even under a so-called “comprehensive
review” system, will be made about an applicant’s
future largely based on their ability to score well on standardized
tests.

Standardized tests, particularly the SAT I, have many critics.
Government researchers, teachers, educators and national public
policy makers struggle over why Asian Americans, Native Americans,
African Americans, Chicanos, Latinos and women generally score
significantly lower than the average white male SAT-taker.

The conclusions are clear. The SAT is culturally biased. It
favors higher-income test takers who can afford to take
test-preparation courses. Moreover, its content is irrelevant to
intellect and therefore fails as a measure of success in higher
education.

Despite the challenges to the validity of the SAT I, it remains
one of several factors used in UCLA’s admissions process.
Other factors that take greater weight are SAT IIs, GPA and AP
courses. Though these are more valid and reliable measures, each is
still imperfect and contains the same biases as the SAT I.

Replacing the SAT I with an increased emphasis on SAT IIs is not
necessarily beneficial for under-resourced communities and
communities of color, especially when many times applicants from
these communities don’t even know they need to take those
tests. That isn’t to say that there is no functional purpose
in eliminating the SAT I as a factor altogether. Of all the various
academic criteria, the SAT I is the weakest indicator of all. And
how well you score on it could still make the difference between
admission and rejection from UCLA.

Is the hope to remove the SAT I to increase the number of
students from underrepresented communities? I don’t know if
that will be the case, especially with the prospects of
substituting it with either the SAT II or yet another inadequate
standardized test.

We are all ultimately fighting in a limited system that fails to
provide quality education for all. Instead, we are forced to
compete and define “merit” and “qualified”
because we feel that we really know the true meaning of
“merit” and we are truly “qualified.”

The larger issue is not that there are too many of one racial or
ethnic group at UCLA, nor too few of others. The discourse that
exists today at UCLA about diversity (or the lack of it) calls for
a greater need to provide opportunities in higher education for
underrepresented communities. It is also a discourse that calls for
public institutions to provide opportunities in higher education
for all people ““ so that poor and struggling whites
don’t feel slighted by affirmative action, and people of
color don’t have to fight an entire system of institutions
that privileges heterosexual white men.

In this system of limited resources for education, there are no
easy answers to standardized testing or admissions. If we continue
to categorize people based on imperfect standards, we will always
be benefiting some and injuring others. It is clear that the
current system draws and reinforces lines that are closely married
to a person’s race, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic
background.

The longer we see the issue of standardized testing so narrowly
““ as ways to distinguish who’s smart and who’s
not, who’s in and who’s out ““ the more we forget
that education is a human right. By supporting standardized testing
and the SAT I, we are admitting that we do not care about
rectifying the injustices of our educational system.

This would be unfortunate because education is a right. It is
not just for you. It is not just for me. It is not just for those
who were admitted under our growingly elitist admissions system. It
is not just for those who can pay $800 to take a Kaplan SAT prep
course. And it is not just for people who can read this
viewpoint.

The first step to rectifying our system is to accept the very
real possibility that there will soon be no requirement for the SAT
I to be admitted to a UC. However, SAT I or not, people are still
being denied access to UCLA and the UCs ““ especially
underrepresented people of color. But at the very least, removing
the SAT I is a step in the right direction.