Admission

NORM-REFERENCED TESTS AND RACE-BLIND ADMISSIONS: The Case for Eliminating the SAT and ACT at the University of California by Saul Geiser, UC Berkeley CSHE 15.17 (December 2017)

Saul Geiser
2017

Of all college admission criteria, scores on nationally normed tests like the SAT and ACT are most affected by the socioeconomic background of the student. The effect of socioeconomic background on test scores has grown substantially at University of California over the past two decades, and tests have become more of a barrier to admission of disadvantaged students. In 1994, socioeconomic background factors—family income, parents’ education, and race/ethnicity—accounted for 25 percent of the variation in test scores among California high school graduates who applied to UC. By 2011, they...

The Conditions for Admission Access, Equity, and the Social Contract of Public Universities by John Aubrey Douglass (2007)

John Aubrey Douglass
2007

The social contract of public universities—the progressive idea that any citizen who meets specified academic conditions can gain entry to their state university—has profoundly shaped American society. This book offers the first comprehensive examination of admission policies and practices at public universities. Using the University of California, the nation's largest public research university and among its most selective, as an illuminating case study, it explores historical and contemporary debates over affirmative action, gender, class, standardized testing, and the growing influences...

EXCELLENCE AND DIVERSITY: The Emergence of Selective Admission Policies in Dutch Higher Education - A Case Study on Amsterdam University College

Christoffel Reumer
Marijk Van der Wende
2010

This paper explores the emergence of selective admission policies in Dutch university education. Such policies are being developed to promote excellence in a higher education system that is generally known to be “egalitarian” and increasingly criticized for a lack of differentiation. The changing policy context of admission in Dutch university education and its driving forces and rationales are discussed in the context of European-wide developments such as the Bologna Process. Especially the emergence of selective liberal arts colleges will be presented as a recent excellence...

The Influence of Wealth and Race in Four-Year College Attendance

Su Jin Jez
2008

College is increasingly essential for economic and social mobility. Current research devotes significant attention to race and socioeconomic factors in college access. Yet wealth’s role, as differentiated from income, is largely unexplored. Utilizing a nationally representative dataset, this study analyzes the role of wealth among students who attend four-year colleges. The hypothesis that wealth matters through the provision of differential habitus, social capital, and cultural capital that support the college-going process, is tested through the application of a series of binary logistic...

Not So Fast! A Second Opinion on a University of California Proposal to Endorse the New SAT

Saul Geiser
2008

A University of California faculty committee, the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS), has recommended eliminating achievement tests and requiring only the “New SAT” for admission to the UC system. The proposal to endorse the New SAT has thus far drawn relatively little notice, as it is part of a broader and more controversial set of proposed changes in how UC identifies the top 12.5 percent of California high school graduates who are eligible for admission. Yet the testing proposal deserves much more attention in its own right since, if approved by the Regents, it would...

Back to the Basics: In Defense of Achievement (and Achievement Tests) in College Admissions

Saul Geiser
2008

Summarizing a decade of research at the University of California, this paper concludes that admissions criteria that tap student mastery of curriculum content, such as high-school grades and performance on achievement tests, are stronger predictors of success in college and are fairer to poor and minority applicants than tests of general reasoning such as the SAT.

Race, Income, and College in 25 Years: Evaluating Justice O'Connor's Conjecture

Alan Krueger
Jesse M. Rothstein
Sarah Turner
2006

In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), Justice Sandra Day O'Connor conjectured that in 25 years affirmative action in college admissions will be unnecessary. We project the test score distribution of black and white college applicants 25 years from now, focusing on the role of black-white family income gaps. Economic progress alone is unlikely to narrow the achievement gap enough in 25 years to produce today's racial diversity levels with race-blind admissions. A return to the rapid black-white test score convergence of the 1980s could plausibly cause black...

The Merits Of The National Merit Scholars Program: Questions And Concerns

Patrick Hayashi
2005

After passage of Proposition 209, the University of California began searching for race-neutral admissions criteria that would allow it to minimize drops in enrollment of underrepresented minorities. Concern for underrepresented minorities led to several changes in admissions policies, most notably the introduction of comprehensive or holistic review for freshmen admission at all UC campuses. These efforts to identify criteria that would support UC’s efforts to maintain a racially and ethnically diverse student body have led to another unexpected development. The Board of...

California And The SAT: A Reanalysis Of University Of California Admissions Data

Rebecca Zwick
Terran Brown
Jeffrey C. Sklar
2004

As part of the University of California's recent reconsideration of the role of the SAT in admissions, the UC Office of the President published an extensive report, UC and the SAT (2001), which examined the value of SAT I Reasoning Test scores, SAT II Subject Test scores, and high school grades in predicting the grade-point averages of UC freshmen (UCGPA), as well as the role of economic factors in predicting UCGPA. The analyses in UC and the SAT were based primarily on data that had been aggregated across freshmen cohorts (1996 through 1999) and across UC campuses. In the current...

Admissions Bias: A New Approach to Validity Estimation in Selected Samples

Jesse M. Rothstein
2002

Validity researchers typically work with nonrandom samples, membership in which depends in part on the exam score being investigated. In a study of the SAT's validity for freshman GPA at a particular college, for example, FGPA is not observed for the entire pool of potential applicants, but only for those who are admitted and enroll. This sample selection biases validity estimates. Corrections for restriction of range remedy the problem only when the exam score is the sole determinant of selection, and even then do not permit consistent estimation of the exam's incremental validity....