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University of California slams the door on standardized admissions tests, nixing any SAT alternative
Los Angeles Times ^ | November 18, 2021 | Teresa Watanabe

Posted on 11/21/2021 5:50:08 AM PST by karpov

The University of California has slammed the door shut on using any standardized test for admissions decisions, announcing Thursday that faculty could find no alternative exam that would avoid the biased results that led leaders to scrap the SAT last year.

UC Provost Michael Brown declared the end of testing for admissions decisions at a Board of Regents meeting, putting a conclusive end to more than three years of research and debate in the nation’s premier public university system on whether standardized testing does more harm than good when assessing applicants for admission.

“UC will continue to practice test-free admissions now and into the future,” Brown said to the regents, during a discussion about a possible alternative to the SAT and ACT tests.

Testing supporters argue that standardized assessments provide a uniform measure to predict the college performance of students from varied schools and backgrounds. But UC ultimately embraced opposing arguments that high school grades are a better tool without the biases based on race, income and parent education levels found in tests.

Given UC’s size and influence, the prolonged debate was closely followed nationally as a harbinger of the future of standardized testing in admissions. Its decision to permanently drop testing requirements is likely to embolden other campuses to do likewise and accelerate the national movement to seek more equitable ways to assess a student’s potential to succeed in college.

“When you have the most prestigious university system in the nation’s most populous state functioning without test scores and developing ways to do admissions fairly and accurately without them, it’s very significant,” said Bob Schaeffer, executive director of FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing. “UC already is and increasingly will become a national model for test-free admissions.”

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: California
KEYWORDS: admissions; affirmativeaction; berkeley; college; collegeadmissions; racenorming; reparations; sat; standardizedtests; wboopi
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To: HighSierra5

Pretty soon you are going to need a GPA of 11 on a scale of 0-4 to get into UC.


41 posted on 11/21/2021 7:27:09 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: Billie Bud

True - there are all sorts of tips and tricks. Still, a high SAT score usually means a student will do well in college. I’ve always believed the higher SAT scores should receive scholarships. On the other hand, a lower SAT score doesn’t mean the student will do poorly in college.


42 posted on 11/21/2021 7:31:51 AM PST by Tired of Taxes
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To: Bon of Babble

If students can be coached to choose correct answers, it doesn’t really demonstrate their ability to understand more complicated texts in college. It demonstrates they understood how to choose the correct answer.

If one really wants to measure critical reading skills, ask for a list of books read during high school years. Ask for a portfolio of written work and essays.

Of course, this also requires admissions to be informed and well read as the prospective student.

Do you ever wonder how some of our founding fathers were admitted back in the day?


43 posted on 11/21/2021 7:32:28 AM PST by Billie Bud
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To: Billie Bud
My biggest problem with the SAT is that you discover that many times the so-called "best" answer e.g. their definition of the correct answer is actually wrong. But they validate the correct answer by correlating the choices on answer with high scorers on previous answers [SAT used to contain "developmental" questions interspersed with actual questions.]

It's another example of leftist relativism, that the right answer is the answer chosen by the currently identified elite in society outside of any view that there are absolute standards of truth [the sun really does rise in the direction of rotation of the earth, which by convention we call east]

44 posted on 11/21/2021 7:34:22 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: karpov

I am glad I’m not the boss today having to evaluate the performance of employees and their work products. We cannot be far from bosses getting fired for reprimanding employees or critiquing substandard work.

I can just picture the snowflakes arguing why their work isn’t pure crap, running to HR, lambasting you and the company on social media, and getting huge settlements for their “inhuman treatment and stress.” Meanwhile, you are in the unemployment line.


45 posted on 11/21/2021 7:35:42 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (“…in any great disaster, there's a Harvard man in the middle of it.” ~ Thomas Sowell)
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To: Macoozie

Exactly right about the high performing minority kids. The ones with good but not great test scores are scooped up by elite colleges because there are so few of them. 1% of black kids score above 1400 on the SAT. 9% are over 1200. That hurts those kids when they are thrown into the deep-end because Harvard and Yale want ‘diversity.’

If you live in one of those areas where parents are Ivy or bust, suggest that if they really believed white privilege is bad, they would forbid their kids from applying to elite schools, and attend a regional state school. It’s the only way to stop systemic racism. It’s fun to the reaction when you suggest they live up to their beliefs and sacrifice their kids’ futures.


46 posted on 11/21/2021 7:37:16 AM PST by Betty Jane
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To: x

correct. I should’ve said “more” students shift.


47 posted on 11/21/2021 7:41:44 AM PST by Redmen4ever
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To: karpov

In ten years a UC degree won’t be worth the paper it is printed on.


48 posted on 11/21/2021 7:42:34 AM PST by Gritty (We're never gonna know how safe the vaccine is (for kids) until we start giving it-DrRuben,FDA Panel)
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To: karpov

As in all socialist societies, it will soon be “who you know” is more important than “how much you know”.


49 posted on 11/21/2021 7:47:47 AM PST by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals)
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To: AndyJackson

Absolutely agree. The push for these “across the board standardized tests” is a push for federalizations of public education (which we secretly seem to have through the NEA) is astounding.

These “standards” make grades meaningless for grade level promotions, and yes it is correlated to the push for a one size fits all admittance test standard for colleges.

However, even in that game, it’s flawed. If you think your white male student who scores above his female minority counterpart will be admitted based on his higher score, you’re wrong .

Race means EVERYTHING and has for decades. It’s even better to be a trans with surgeries to boot and you not only get admitted, you get scholarships!!


50 posted on 11/21/2021 7:50:04 AM PST by Billie Bud
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To: JayGalt

China and India use standardized testing which is used to assign students to universities. Young people study for those tests like their lives depend on their scores.


51 posted on 11/21/2021 7:58:30 AM PST by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Gone but not forgiven.)
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To: libertylover

It’s the BS criteria of disparate impact. The alternative is That Which May Never Be Thought, so it HAS to be the test (Mittal, HR, etc)


52 posted on 11/21/2021 7:59:07 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: karpov

So, what happens when they grade the students that were admitted without a formal entrance exam? Will class grades be ignored also? Certainly someone at these meetings where the decisions are made must be asking the question.


53 posted on 11/21/2021 8:01:50 AM PST by devane617 (RUN FOR LOCAL ELECTED OFFICE! COUNCIL,SCHOOL BOARD, ETC.)
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To: coloradan

Yes, but NOW the “Admissions Department” can demand much bigger BRIBES to admit the idiot children of the “elite”....


54 posted on 11/21/2021 8:02:22 AM PST by pfony1 ( All Democrats lie.)
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To: Will88

Medical boards are national not state.


55 posted on 11/21/2021 8:05:36 AM PST by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Gone but not forgiven.)
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To: karpov

I’m completely against this move, but studies do show that the #1 predictor of college success is high school grades, followed closely by the SAT.

So this may not be the end of the world—although all three of my boys scored higher on the SAT than their grades would have predicted. They went to a tough high school and were “late bloomers” academically. A high SAT score is objective (grades aren’t) and is an indicator of future college success even if the grades are not the best.


56 posted on 11/21/2021 8:05:48 AM PST by olivia3boys
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To: Still Thinking

Mittal = mortgage. Thanks android


57 posted on 11/21/2021 8:12:38 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Graybeard58

Does ye haf ta be uh Injun to be uh injunear, er can inuhbody do it?

Uhn why’s peeple wont tuh be uh injunear anuhway? Duz that makum hear bettrr?


58 posted on 11/21/2021 8:46:32 AM PST by seowulf (Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos...Will Durant)
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To: karpov

“Accurate” admissions?

And just what is “fair” admissions?


59 posted on 11/21/2021 8:48:41 AM PST by 9YearLurker
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To: CoastWatcher

100%


60 posted on 11/21/2021 8:49:01 AM PST by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
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