This report responds to recent announcements by Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and other institutions reinstating the SAT or ACT for admission. Widely publicized after aNew York Timesarticle and analysis by Harvard’s Opportunity Insights group, these announcement rest on two claims: that standardized tests outperform high school grades in predicting college success and that they may enhance diversity in admissions. Both claims falter...
New UC Berkeley Report Challenges Return to SAT: Calls for Public Universities to Double Down on Public Mission
Berkeley, CA – September 30, 2025 — As a number of elite “Ivy-Plus” universities have reinstated SAT and ACT requirements, a new research report by Saul Geiser, Senior Associate at UC Berkeley’s Center...
New UC Berkeley Report Challenges Return to SAT: Calls for Public Universities to Double Down on Public Mission
Berkeley, CA – September 30, 2025 — As a number of elite “Ivy-Plus” universities have reinstated SAT and ACT requirements, a new research report by Saul Geiser, Senior Associate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, argues that the tests are a poor fit for the mission of America’s public universities.
The report, Why the SAT is a Poor Fit for America’s Public Universities, responds to a wave of high-...
Tongshan Chang is Director of Institutional Research and Academic Planning at the University of California (UC) Office of the President and Consultant of UC Systemwide Academic Senate Committees on the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) and Preparatory Education (UCOPE). He is SERU (Student Experience in the Research University) Senior Researcher at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley, voluntarily assisting the SERU leadership and principal investigators in recruiting Chinese institutions and conducting...
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE