UC Revives Discussion of Dropping SAT

Berkley, Calif.
University of California officials played down a report that they have developed preliminary proposals for major changes in admissions, including eliminating the SAT requirement.
A story published recently in The San Francisco Chronicle said a draft report, which came out of a recent one-day conference on admissions, recommends eliminating the SAT and giving extra weight to consideration of students who participate in UC's outreach programs.
UC has struggled with decreasing Black and Hispanic admissions since dropping affirmative action. Although UC no long can consider race, it can recruit and support disadvantaged students and the conference, attended by about a 100 UC admissions directors, faculty, students and system officials, was part of that effort.
The Chronicle noted the draft recommendations are subject to months of review and some may have to be approved by regents.
But UC Provost C. Judson King responded to the article with a statement saying the conference "produced a variety of ideas but stopped well short of evaluation of those ideas or development of any formal plan for addressing these issues."
UC provided a copy of draft recommendations typed up after the conference, but said they amounted to notes that would go into the creation of a draft report in the future. The draft recommendations released last month discuss a range of options for the SAT, including reform, elimination or making it optional.
UC Regent Ward Connerly, who led the fight to drop UC's affirmative action admissions, says he hasn't seen the proposals. However, he says he was concerned UC is responding to pressure to try to increase the numbers of Black and Hispanic students.