The University of California, which last year decided to make SAT and ACT scores optional for applicants, has agreed not to consider test scores in Admissions or scholarship decisions, reports Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio in the New York Times.

By dropping the use of the ACT and SAT, the university settled a 2019 lawsuit by a coalition of students, advocacy groups and the Compton Unified School District, writes Nieto del Rio. The plaintiffs charged that using the tests “illegally discriminates against applicants on the basis of their race, wealth and disability.”

“Critics of the ACT and SAT have raised concerns that the tests put less wealthy students at a disadvantage, citing decades of data indicating that they are inherently biased in favor of affluent, white and Asian-American students,” writes Nieto del Rio. “They also say the tests are too easily gamed by students who can pay thousands of dollars for private coaching and test prep.”

Many Asian-American students in California come from working-class immigrant families and speak English as a second language. In what way are the SATs or ACTs biased in their favor?

Years ago, UC considered using affirmative action for students from disadvantaged families rather than relying on race and ethnicity. A study found it would qualify even more Asian-American students for admissions and somewhat more rural whites.

Confusion about test bias is rampant, wrote Jeffrey Aaron Snyder last year in Inside Higher Ed.

Imagine a village where boys are prevented from attending school. If you administer a math test to all of the 12-year-olds in the village, the boys are going to bomb the test in comparison to the girls. Is the test “biased”? More likely than not, the results are revealing real differences in mathematical knowledge and skills as a result of divergent educational opportunities.

“While claims that the SAT discriminates against racial minorities and low-income students are legion, specific examples of bias are in short supply,” writes Snyder. (The notorious “regatta” question was dropped more than 25 years ago.)

The fact that affluent students earn higher scores, on average, is not because of test prep, which provides a very small boost, writes Snyder.  It’s because they’ve had far more educational opportunities including “well-resourced public or private schools with top-flight teachers, rigorous coursework and robust extracurriculars.” They’re better prepared for college success.

When the University of California analyzed the impact of test scores on admissions, the study concluded that the SAT finds talented Black and Hispanic students who’d otherwise be overlooked because of their grades, writes Andrew Sullivan on Substack.

The experts wrote: “Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines, even after controlling for high school grades. In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority students, who are first-generation, or whose families are low-income.”

Grades are becoming less predictive of college success due to grade inflation, the report noted.

This year, with test scores waived due to the pandemic, UC applications are way up for Hispanic and Black students. The number of seats is the same. How will admissions officers tell all those A students from each other? It’s hard to know who wrote the admissions essay or if its tale of adversity overcome is true. Will rich or poor kids be better at gaming an ever more subjective system?

Or will it be Spanish last names in, Asian last names out?

There’s been talk of using the 11th-grade Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced test for college admissions or developing a new California test. Asian-American and White students do much better than Hispanic and Black students on Smarter Balanced. I can’t imagine a new test that would qualify students for state universities in numbers equal to their percentage of the population.