Schrag: Enlarging the Pool of Those Eligible for Admission to the University of California

There would still be minimum requirements – completion of the 15 "a-to-g" courses – English, math, science, social studies, etc. – that UC demands, a GPA of 2.8 or higher in those courses and the SAT Reasoning Test, formerly the SAT I.

But the SAT II subject-matter tests would no longer be required. Since the SAT I was revised to include writing and more substantive math items, UC believes, scores on the SAT II tests contribute little additional information in predicting whether an applicant will be successful at the university.

At the same time, BOARS says, because a large percentage of poor, Latino and black students don't take the SAT II tests, that requirement alone – not grades or test scores – has shut out a large percentage of those groups from the pool of eligibles. The largest disqualifying factor among students taking the "a-to-g" courses is students' failure to take the SAT II tests.

Moreover, says Rashid, the current guarantee of eligibility for students with a combination of high grades and test scores adds almost nothing in practical terms. Students who are guaranteed eligibility for UC but aren't admitted to the campuses to which they apply are bumped to a campus – inevitably Riverside or Merced – where there is space. But almost nobody takes those offers.

"By inviting a broader pool of prospective students to apply and be evaluated under comprehensive review," Rashid says, "campuses can make a better and more fair determination of academic merit by looking at all of the students' achievements in the context of their particular schools and personal circumstances.

"This is what our selective campuses do now when they choose among eligible students; every applicant should get the same opportunity."

BOARS calculates that without the SAT II requirements many more students would be UC eligible. The existing system, Rashid maintains, denies the campuses the opportunity to choose students who might contribute more than those admitted now.
Obviously, elimination of the SAT II requirement doesn't mean that thousands more applicants will be admitted. But it would enlarge the pool from which campuses can choose. And it's here that the plan becomes vulnerable to criticism and dispute.

Leaving aside suspicions of bad faith by admissions officers – that in applying the more squishy criteria of comprehensive review, they'll pursue diversity and overlook competence by giving blacks and Latinos preferences, either consciously or otherwise – the system will still find it tougher to justify its decisions.

When hard numbers – tests, grades – are used at least to define eligibility for the pool from which campuses choose, decisions can always be defended with "objective" facts. That those numbers sometimes don't mean much doesn't make the alternative criteria any easier to defend. And, of course, the numbers do mean something. There may not be much difference between 650 and 700 on an SAT math test, but there surely is between 500 and 750.

In the decades before (and just after World II), the Ivy League and other elite colleges downplayed tests and grades in order to pick the "whole man," meaning white shoe WASPS from the right social backgrounds. Comprehensive review may never become the black-brown version of that, but UC could still have a hard time persuading the skeptics.

Peter Schrag is the former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee. This article is published with his permission.