More fuel has been added to the already-raging debate about the validity of the SAT in predicting high school students' achievement in college.
Ever since February, when University of California President Richard Atkinson proposed to eliminate the SAT I requirement from UC admissions and put more emphasis on the SAT II, there have been heated debates about the use of standardized test scores in college admissions.
Now, a UC study supporting Atkinson's recommendation, released last Thursday, has added to the controversy by showing that SAT II achievement tests are better predictors of UC freshman grades than are scores on the SAT I.
Moreover, the results indicate that SAT II scores are much less affected by differences in students' socioeconomic backgrounds than SAT I results.
Many have speculated that Atkinson's proposal earlier this year was intended to increase UC's diversity, due to allegations that the SAT is racially biased. Since Proposition 209 banned affirmative action in 1996, UC minority enrollment numbers have gone down. Atkinson has repeatedly denied that his proposal is related to affirmative action.
"These are important findings, and they will be factored in with the rest of the debate over the appropriate use of the SAT in admissions process," UC spokesman Brad Hayward said. "This is one additional piece of information that our faculty are going to be considering as they review the SAT proposal."
Saul Geiser, one of the study's researchers, said the SAT II is more accurate than the SAT I in predicting freshman-year GPA.
"Performance on both the SAT I and SAT II are correlated with socioeconomic background," Geiser said. "But the SAT II is a fairer test."
Essentially, the study indicated that students from different ethnic groups perform about the same on the SAT II as they do on the SAT I, with only minor differences.
Results reported 22.2 percent of the variance among college freshman GPAs is explained by their high school GPAs and SAT II scores. But this difference increases only 0.1 percent when SAT I scores are also considered.
"What it comes down to is how you predict the variance of GPA for freshmen in college," Hayward said. "When you're already using the SAT II, adding the SAT I will add very little difference."
These discoveries have added to ongoing discussions both in the University of California System and within the realm of higher education about the validity of standardized testing.
Penn Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson has said in the past that the University has no intentions of disregarding the SAT. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Atkinson's proposal is currently under review by the UC Academic Senate. While no changes in the UC's existing test requirements have been implemented, the findings of Thursday's study will most definitely influence the Senate's ultimate decision, Hayward said.
UC researchers Geiser and Roger Studley began working on the report in March, shortly after Atkinson's announcement.
Using the records of nearly 78,000 first-time freshmen who entered the UC system over a four-year period, they examined the relationship between standardized test scores and academic outcomes.
The results of this study have provoked discourse in the realm of higher education, largely due to the fact that any decision that the University of California makes with regard to eliminating SAT I scores will be influential in college admissions across the country.
"The UC dropping the SAT I requirement is a big event because the UC system is by far the biggest single user of the test," said Nicholas Lemann, who wrote a recent book called The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy. "The question is 'If they do it, will others follow?' I suspect yes."
Other officials in higher education, however, do not speculate that this study will impact admissions procedures at private universities.
The study "really won't change the admissions processes at private universities," Seppy Basili, the director of pre-college programs at Kaplan, said. "Private universities already know how to use the SAT in their admissions processes."
Basili said that the SAT debate in the UC system could not be applied to the nation as a whole, saying Atkinson's proposal and the debates that ensued were due to the quality of the University of California and the impact of Proposition 209.
"What's going on in California is in some ways a political and economic challenge," Basili said. "The fact is that low income and minority students aren't getting into the system in numbers that people would like to see."
In the bigger picture, however, the UC system's debate, especially the results of the new UC study, has exposed the potential flaws in standardized testing.
"The question of whether to [disregard] the SAT I but not the SAT II came as a surprise," Lemman said. "Atkinson put a new wrinkle in there."
