The Consequences Of Removing The SAT

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On May 17th, The Los Angeles Times posted an article about the consequences of removing the SAT as part of the consideration in college admissions.

The article reports:

    • Hundreds of UC faculty are urging a return of SAT or ACT test requirements for STEM applicants, citing math deficits after six years of being test-free.
    • A UC San Diego report of soaring math unpreparedness is fueling faculty warnings that reliable testing is needed for admissions.
    • Critics call the SAT inequitable and say high school grades are a good predictor of college success.

Theoretically, the goal of a student entering college is to complete their desired degree program and graduate. It should be the responsibility of the college to admit students who are capable of doing that.

The article notes:

More than 600 University of California faculty members, led by mathematicians at UC Berkeley, are calling on the system to reinstate standardized testing requirements for science, technology, engineering and mathematics applicants, saying that six years of test-free admissions has not reliably assessed readiness and professors are often teaching middle school math to incoming students.

Without standardized testing in admissions, professors said they don’t know whether incoming students can handle college-level math. The open letter, addressed to top UC leaders, asks for SAT or ACT exams to be required beginning in fall 2027 and for STEM faculty to be given formal oversight of readiness standards in their majors.

“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” they warned.

The article concludes:

In 11th grade, the most relevant grade relating to college readiness, 30.5% of students met or exceeded math learning standards. Of these, nearly half exceeded the learning standard — marking them as likely to be the best prepared for a college STEM major.

Any change to UC admissions requirements must move through the Academic Senate admissions board committee before going to the Board of Regents. Minutes from the admissions board‘s March 6 meeting show members signaled tentative interest in eventually requiring 11th-grade Smarter Balanced assessment scores for California residents and SAT or ACT scores for nonresidents.

The board plans to submit an initial draft by Sunday and a “final road map” by June 30.

Colleges need to teach college course–not teach things that students should have learned in high school.