Commentary: SAT scores are another way California schools are closing their doors to diversity

In this last year, the University of California has been dismantling support systems that help underrepresented students succeed, while simultaneously debating whether to raise the barrier through standardized testing for those same students to even get in the door. This combination, which is a direct result of the UC system’s silent compliance with the Trump administration, should be extremely alarming to all UC undergraduates and prospective students.

Not everyone starts with the same opportunities or access to a good education, and the university’s obligation is to close that gap through outreach to kids as young as 5, Summer Bridge and similar infrastructure, not to bar under-resourced students from entering public higher education.

I’m an example of a UC student who probably would not have been admitted if acceptance had rested solely on my GPA or SAT scores. I recently graduated from UC Davis with a double major in political science and nutrition science after serving two years as the UC Student Assn. president, representing more than 236,000 UC students. I would’ve never had the opportunity to thrive in an academic or professional environment if the UC system had locked its doors to me simply because my high school marks weren’t as impressive as other applicants’.

As someone who took the SAT twice, I was able to improve my score only due to my access to paid preparatory materials, which included in-person lessons and coaching. Every person in California pays taxes for the UC system, but the conversation around standardized testing is seeking to limit a UC education to those who can afford the methods to improve their marks.

Specific academic support programs, such as those designed for the retention of diverse students, have also been hurt this year as university administration prioritizes compliance with the Trump administration’s demands against DEI initiatives.

At UC Santa Cruz, the Black Student Academy and the Undocumented Scholars Academy were merged into a broader summer orientation that students now describe as much less meaningful than the identity-tailored programming.

At UC Davis, the Asian & Pacific Islander Initiative was renamed to Lotus, and the Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success was renamed to El Centro, which makes it harder for incoming students to find resources unless they already know what to look for.

At UC San Diego, the Black Student Experience, an overnight program to support the retention of first-year Black students, has faced significant barriers to restarting since it was put on hold during the pandemic.

At UC Santa Barbara, the Office of Black Student Development has struggled for years to hire a director and fill out its staff roles; what should be an eight-person office is operated by just two team members.

For the UC system to scale back identity-specific academic support while considering whether to reimplement standardized testing, which would bar many under-resourced students from entering UC schools, is a highly troubling trend, as it signifies the UC’s complicity with elitism.

There’s little evidence to support the case for reinstating testing. After the UC system voted to eliminate the SAT/ACT requirement in May 2020, freshman applications rose 19% within a single year, suggesting that removing that barrier opened a meaningful access point for many California students and families who under the previous rules might not have chosen to apply. Despite the resulting increase in class diversity, the university saw no corresponding decline in student persistence or in graduation rates.

The current push by UC faculty to reinstate the SAT/ACT benchmark rests on the claim that standardized testing yields an incoming class with stronger mathematical literacy. However, it is inaccurate to pin the decline of incoming students’ skills on the removal of the SAT/ACT alone. The pandemic’s disruption to K-12 learning, combined with the more recent academic effects of artificial intelligence tools, has contributed to the global learning crisis independent of any single university’s admissions policy.

Treating this as a binary choice between “bring back the SAT” or “accept lower literacy rates at the UC” is a false dichotomy. Rather than restricting who gets to enroll, the university system must invest its time in improving access to the A-G courses required for a UC admission, recruitment programs to diverse youth, and specific academic support and retention resources for the diverse class of already enrolled UC students.

That false dichotomy is especially indefensible given how the case for reinstatement has actually been built. The push to bring back the SAT/ACT rests heavily on an analysis showing that UCSD first-year students’ math preparation has fallen below high school level over the last five years. UCSD faculty cite the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools as a reason for this literacy disparity, and have proposed SAT/ACT test scores to limit admission for those very same students, which is antithetical to the purpose of public universities seeking to educate as many California residents as possible.

The process by which this decision is being made compounds the problem. The UC Systemwide Academic Senate, a body of faculty who share governance with the UC Board of Regents, has accelerated its deliberation timeline and dismantled the group working on SAT/ACT reinstatement. That leaves little time to solicit input from the public, researchers, coalition partners or students, meaning a decision this consequential may rest largely on the views of a small group rather than a genuine consultation process with all stakeholders.

Additionally, the prospective applicants throughout California and across the country are left uncertain how to plan for the coming admissions cycle, a fog that could suppress applications and shrink diversity before any new policy even takes effect.

If the UC system is serious about equity, the answer isn’t to reinstate a test that measures proximity to wealth and resources more than it proves true academic ability. The answer is to fund the programs that build readiness and academic support for incoming students.

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Aditi Hariharan is a recent UC Davis graduate and the outgoing UC Student Assn. president.