Guest Opinion | Dr. Jessica Cobb and Mo Hyman: The SAT/ACT is a Relic of the Past. California’s Resilient Students Are the Future.

Calls to add SAT/ACT scores to University of California admissions have reached a fever pitch, with droves of UC faculty signing online petitions and the New York Times editorial board weighing in from across the country. But third-party standardized tests do not measure students’ UC-readiness, and they will not fix skills gaps in US education. What the SAT/ACT does is block highly qualified low-income students and students of color – our students – from attending selective colleges. And that’s the point. Excluding more of our students is the UC faculty’s stated aim.

The fuss over UC admissions began with a report by the UCSD Workgroup on Admissions, which focuses on limiting the admissions of students who place into math remediation. Because students from disadvantaged backgrounds are overrepresented in remediation, the workgroup names an independent goal of shrinking their enrollment at UCSD (The Workgroup on Admissions identifies students from schools with high populations of low-income students, English learners, and students in foster care–from LCFF+ schools–as overrepresented; an earlier report by the Workgroup on Math Placement identifies first-generation college students and students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups as overrepresented).

If the UCs restore the SAT/ACT to admissions decisions, they will not end math remediation.. But they will likely achieve the goal of reducing the enrollment of disadvantaged students. The SAT/ACT is good at excluding low-income students and students of color from high-quality, public education opportunities. That’s why we sued the UC Board of Regents in 2019 to move toward test-free admissions. And that’s why we’re sounding the alarm again. 

The SAT/ACT is an unnecessary and discriminatory hurdle to college admissions. Substantial UC-specific research shows that the test is tightly correlated with race and class and only loosely correlated with college grades past freshman year. (The  New York Times graphs purporting to show otherwise come from one study that only examines students admitted to elitist, grade-inflated “Ivy Plus” schools.) Test prep access remains deeply stratified, with middle-class and high-income kids paying ever more to increase their odds of admission, despite the availability of free tools like Khan Academy.

Just as important as these data are the experiences of the first-generation students, low-income students, and students of color we serve in our college access programs. Our students deserve to spend their time on real learning, not gaming high-stakes exams. Those students include scores of high school juniors and seniors who successfully navigated college applications and financial aid appeals while also experiencing displacement after the devastating  Eaton Fire. They include students from mixed-status families who have made heart-wrenching college decisions after watching their friends’ parents “disappear” into ICE detention. 

This is the crux of the problem. Skills gaps in UC math and English classes are symptomatic of a much larger issue that regressive admissions formulas cannot solve. Today’s students have been battered by wave after wave of educational disruption: the COVID-19 pandemic, ICE raids on families, housing precarity, the advent of AI, and climate disasters. These disruptions fall especially hard on disadvantaged students. They should not be penalized for their resilience. The University of California must find a way to meet these challenges with the same tenacity, compassion, and purpose that their young applicants display day after day.

The good news is, California already has evidence-backed mechanisms to improve student success in college-level math and English without sacrificing equity in access. The California Community Colleges’ AB 705 is a model for effective remediation that eliminates flawed placement tests and replaces stultifying pre-requisites with targeted concurrent supports. A similar approach could help the UCs increase belonging and reduce time to degree completion. UCs should also immediately enable students to validate their high school grades in college-preparatory math by submitting their Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment scores.

Finally, the University of California has ready partners in the state’s K-12 schools and community colleges. The UCs should commit to supporting K-12 community schooling. They should increase transfer admissions from the California Community Colleges. And they should invest in equitable dual enrollment, opening the door to more students receiving college English and math credit while still in high school.

The University of California is still the country’s most competitive public university system. The coming debate will decide whether it remains the most innovative and progressive, or if it falls in line with the current trend of “anti-woke” retrenchment. As the UC Academic Senate reconsiders the admissions process, we call on the faculty to center their mission of public service. Through intellectual rigor and partner engagement, the University of California has the potential to develop admissions policies that lead the nation in assessing student fit without reproducing disadvantage. Falling back on the SAT/ACT will serve neither students nor the systems that educate the leaders of tomorrow.

Jessica Cobb, Ph.D., is an advocate for educational justice whose career bridges academic scholarship, policy research, and program development. She has served on the board of College Access Plan since 2015.

Mo Hyman is the Executive Director and co-founder of College Access Plan, a writer, and an advocate for equitable access to postsecondary education. She is a proud former adjunct Associate Professor of English at two California Community Colleges.

About College Access Plan

Founded in 2006, College Access Plan (CAP) is an independent 501c3 nonprofit that prepares underserved and underrepresented students to succeed in college. Through partnerships with area school districts and local agencies, CAP provides no-cost college readiness advising and topic-specific courses for high school and middle school students, families, and graduates who attend college. In 2019, CAP, along with co-plaintiffs, sued the University of California for its use of racially and socioeconomically biased entrance exams in admissions and scholarship decisions.